Barry and Robin Gibb of the Bee Gees wrote this in the style of Andy Williams, who was a popular recording artist and television presenter at the time. It became the first #1 US hit for the group, topping the chart for four weeks. Later in 1971, Andy Williams identified it as a song in his wheelhouse and recorded his own version for his covers album You've Got a Friend.
Despite the affected tale of heartache, this song was very easy to write, as Robin Gibb claims they wrote it in about an hour and without struggle or hardship.
Al Green recorded this in 1972 for his album Let's Stay Together. His version was used in the 1999 movie Notting Hill. Green drew out his epic interpretation to nearly six and a half minutes. According to Mojo magazine, producer Willie Mitchell instructed the band to imagine "they were sitting by a river, a forest across the water, with all this music coming out of the forest and floating across the river, kind of delayed."
See your Spotify stats (with number of plays and minutes listened) and discover new music.
Music data, artist images, album covers, and song previews are provided by Spotify. Spotify is a trademark of Spotify AB.