Story of the song: Night Fever by the Bee Gees

As the title theme to one of the highest-grossing movies of the Seventies, “Night Fever” was the song that brought disco to the silver screen. It began life as a magazine article, “Tribal Rites of the New Saturday Night”, penned by the British author Nik Cohn.

In 1976, Cohn was assigned by New York magazine to cover the disco boom, then taking over the clubs. His reportage focused on Vincent, a working-class Italian stallion who lived for the weekends, when he could strut his stuff on the city’s dancefloors and fight Puerto Ricans off it. The cover feature was read by the producer Robert Stigwood, who asked if he could fictionalise it for a film, with the working title “Saturday Night”. Cohn agreed, but 20 years later admitted the whole thing had been fiction from the start. He’d driven past a local disco, and simply made the rest up. “I knew the rules of magazine reporting,” he said. “And I knew that I was breaking them. Bluntly put, I cheated.”

Stigwood managed the Bee Gees, who had signed to his RSO label in 1975. They had been given a disco makeover by the R&B producer Arif Mardin, bringing a powerful and distinctive falsetto style to the genre. The Gibb brothers – Barry, Robin and Maurice – already had a song they thought would fit Stigwood’s project.

“Night Fever” was one of five numbers written for a new album that would eventually end up in the film. Stigwood liked the title and so “Saturday Night” became Saturday Night Fever, set in Brooklyn’s Bay Ridge area, in the shadow of the Verrazano Bridge. It was an edgy tale of sexual aggression and teenage suicide: John Travolta’s punkish peacock, Tony, determined the look – and the Bee Gees defined its sound.

The soundtrack was bought by far more people than saw the film, making it one of the biggest sellers of all time. Many more purchased it by installments: of the 17 tracks, 11 were released as singles. “Night Fever” was produced by the Gibbs, with Karl Richardson and Albhy Galuten, and recorded at Le Chateau Studios in France and Miami’s Criteria Studios during the summer of 1977. The Gibbs weren’t bothered too much about the movie itself. Robin didn’t even see it until it was released: “I thought the music transcended the film,” he said.