“Our Love (Don’t Throw It All Away)” (1977) – Bee Gees * Written by Barry Gibb and Blue Weaver * Produced by Barry Gibb, Albhy Galuten, and Karl Richardson * LP: Bee Gees Greatest (1979) * Label: RSO
For the 1979 Bee Gees Greatest compilation, the Brothers Gibb included their own previously unreleased 1977 recording of “Our Love (Don’t Throw It All Away),” which younger brother Andy had taken to Billboard‘s #2 slot in late 1978. Their own version has an easier sound and arrangement, truer to the chorus’s bossanova breeziness that deserves more presence. For the Andy version, writer/producer Barry tacks on an unnecessary bridge that calls for more vocalizing that strays further from that precious chorus, while the outro’s closing yacht ride gets spoiled by too many falsetto seagulls. So the Bee Gee one is the best version, and the era’s fusion masters (imagine Joe Sample or Bob James or Ramsey Lewis using the chorus as more of a central hook) missed an opportunity with it. But Andy’s version does anticipate the ’80s, the era of big bloated radio ballads that counted overstructuring as a virtue.