When you think of the Bee Gees, most people probably picture them in tight white satin pants and shirts, wearing big gold medallions and singing “Stayin’ Alive” or “More Than a Woman.” However, before they were a popular disco act, they were a folky band with incredible harmonies. Before their big break in 1967, they were mainstays on Australian TV, singing cover songs by bands such as The Beatles, The Everly Brothers, and The Shirelles.
In 1966, the Gibb brothers, Barry, Maurice, and Robin, appeared on ATN-7 in Sydney and performed “Out of Time,” a tune written by Mick Jagger and Keith Richards of The Rolling Stones that appeared on their album Aftermath from earlier that year. The funny thing is that the song was a bigger hit for singer Chris Farlowe (although Jagger produced it) than it was for the Stones.
In this performance, a 16-year-old Robin takes the lead vocal, and although he’s known for having a soft voice with an elegant vibrato, here he lets it rip in the spirit of England’s bad boys. The performance is quite a production with Go-Go dancers, a horn section, and Maurice decked out in Lennon-esque shades. For some reason, at 1:10 and 1:40, the camera focuses right on Barry’s butt.
The song “Out of Time” tells the story of a young woman who left her lover and then tries to come back. However, the jilted lover moved on and has no problem being honest about the unwelcome return. “You’re obsolete, my baby / My poor old-fashioned baby…” he sings.
“Out of Time” is a bit of an anomaly in rock history; although it first appeared on a Stones record, Farlowe re-recorded it with an orchestra, and took it in a m more soulful direction
The Rolling Stones’ original version of “Out of Time.
But wait, you say, doesn’t the Rolling Stones version have a big string section like the Farlowe version? Well, yes and no. The original version opens with the same musical line played by Brian Jones on the marimba. But in 1975, the Rolling Stones released a version on their Metamorphosis album that features the same orchestration as Farlowe’s. That’s because, for Farlowe’s 1966 recording, Jagger first laid down backing vocals to show Farlowe the song’s vibe. When former Stones manager Allen Klein went digging for unreleased material for the 1975 compilation Metamorphoses, they remixed the song with Jagger’s vocal up front.
“I remembered that Mick had done a reference vocal for Chris Farlowe for ‘Out of Time.’ So, I let Allen have it for Metamorphosis ’cause we needed a decent song. I mixed that and added a lot of people from Connecticut, bass players and background vocals that I used on a Donovan session,” Producer Andrew Loog Oldham recalled. “That went onto the album [along with] stuff they’d worked on and not bothered to finish: for example, the version of Stevie Wonder’s ‘I Don’t Know Why,’ which was recorded on the night Brian Jones died.
The 1975 version of “Out of Time” plays a pivotal role in Quentin Tarantino’s 2019 film Once Upon a Time…in Hollywood. It kicks off the film’s third act by signaling the end of an era for Rick Dalton (Leonardo DiCaprio) and Cliff Booth (Brad Pitt) and foreshadowing the pending death of actress Sharon Tate. “Baby, baby, baby, you’re out of time,” Jagger sings in a chilling moment when a pregnant Tate shows off her baby’s nursery.
As for the Bee Gees, they moved to England the next year after their breakout hit album “Spicks and Specks” launched them as international superstars.
Last year, Barry spoke with Upworthy in an exclusive about his early years with the Bee Gees and his love for Bob Dylan.
