Download Instrumental if you like…    This takes me right back to the mid-seventies.  The band I was in started performing “How Deep is Your Love” ten seconds after it was released in ’77.  I loved it mostly because the Fender Rhodes piano pretty much carried the tune – aside from the vocals, of course.  I, personally, think this is the best love song ever written.  The lyrics are beautiful: “I believe in you/you know the door to my very soul/you’re the light in my deepest, darkest hour/you’re my savior when I fall”.  After all these years and having played it a thousand times, I just realized it could easily be a religious song.  I think I may have just had an epiphany…

Of course you know that the Bee Gees  had a huge number one hit with this tune and won a Grammy for “Best Performance” in 1977.  But it all started with an early morning recording studio encounter between Barry Gibb and keyboard player Blue Weaver.  Barry already had these lovely lyrics in his head.  All he needed now was the music.  That particular morning Barry asked Mr. Weaver to “play the most beautiful chord you know”.  Weaver immediately went to an E flat Major seventh chord with an added 9th (try it you’ll like it –  just put an F on top of the 7th chord).  The melody line just seemed to magically flow from that one chord.  And aren’t we all thankful for that?

On December 25th, 1977, The Bee Gees topped the Billboard Hot 100 chart with this masterpiece. For the ten weeks prior to that date, Debbie Boone had carried number one with a song called “You Light Up My Life”.  Oddly enough, this was another tune that could easily be regarded as a hymn.  The coincidences in life are fascinating, are they not?