"Night Fever" is a song written and performed by the Bee Gees. It first appeared on the soundtrack to Saturday Night Fever on RSO Records. The song moved up quickly on the Billboard charts while the Bee Gees' two earlier songs from the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack ("How Deep Is Your Love" and "Stayin' Alive") were still in the top ten.

The record began on the Billboard Hot 100 Chart at #76, then jumped 44 spots to #32. It then moved to: #32, #17, #8, #5, #2, and #1. It stayed at #1 for eight weeks (the highest number of weeks at number one for any song that year) and spent 13 weeks in the top 10. For the first five weeks that "Night Fever" was at #1, "Stayin' Alive" was at #2. Also, for one week in March, songs written by Barry Gibb held five of the top positions on the Hot 100 chart, with four of those songs in the top five, and "Night Fever" was the highest. The B-side of "Night Fever" is a live version of "Down the Road," taken from the Bee Gees' 1977 album, Here at Last… Bee Gees… Live.

Inspiration and writing

When Bee Gees manager Robert Stigwood was making a movie about a New York disco scene, the movie’s temporary name was Saturday Night. Stigwood asked the Bee Gees to write a song using that title, but the group did not like it. They had already written a song called "Night Fever," so they persuaded Stigwood to use that song title instead and change the movie’s name to Saturday Night Fever.

The opening music with strings in "Night Fever" was inspired by the song "Theme from A Summer Place" by Percy Faith, as keyboardist Blue Weaver explained. Weaver described how the song was created:

Barry Gibb, Robin Gibb, and Maurice Gibb finished writing the lyrics for "Night Fever" while sitting on a staircase. This was similar to how they wrote their earlier hit "New York Mining Disaster 1941," which was also written on a staircase in 1967.

Recording

The Bee Gees started recording the song in April 1977 in France and completed it in September of the same year. An early version of "Night Fever," which includes some music and singing parts, was available to download from Rhino Records' website in 2009 or earlier.

Reception

Billboard described the song as having a "jumping disco beat" and a "smooth high-pitched singing" vocal. Cash Box noted it includes a "dancing beat, rough-sounding guitar, grand orchestral music, and the familiar high-pitched singing." Record World predicted the song would become "another popular dance song" for the Bee Gees.

Allmusic critic Donald A. Guarisco noted that the lyrics describe "a disco fan looking for love on the dancefloor" and that the song "effectively shows the happiness disco fans feel while dancing to their favorite music" with lines like "Here I am prayin' for this moment to last/Livin' on the music, so fine." Guarisco praised the song's catchy parts, rhythm, string music, and high-pitched harmonies, stating that the "mix of modern lyrics and a catchy melody truly capture the appeal of disco."

Legacy

The song took the number one spot from Andy Gibb's "Love Is Thicker Than Water" and was later replaced by Yvonne Elliman's "If I Can't Have You." All these songs were written and produced by the Gibb brothers. This achievement marked the third of six consecutive number-one songs in the United States for the band, matching the Beatles' record for the most consecutive number-one singles. Billboard listed it as the second most popular song of 1978, following Andy Gibb's "Shadow Dancing."

"Night Fever" reached the top of the UK Singles Chart for two weeks, becoming the band's third UK number-one. In the United States, it stayed at number one on the Billboard Hot 100 for over two months in 1978. The song appeared in the movie Saturday Night Fever and was also included in the soundtrack for Mystery Men. It is ranked number 38 on Billboard's All Time Top 100 list. The song has also been featured in other films, including Luna, Mr. Saturday Night, I.D., Whatever Happened to Harold Smith?, and Avenue Montaigne.

Music video

A music video was created for the song in 1978, but it was not shown to the public until 2004, which was 26 years later. The video shows the brothers singing the song in a dark studio. The background video was filmed while driving along "Motel Row" on Collins Avenue, a 3-mile (about 5 kilometers) stretch of motels that is now part of Sunny Isles Beach, Florida. Many of the motels seen in the video are no longer open or have been torn down. Some of the motels had names similar to famous resorts in Las Vegas, such as Castaways, Desert Inn, Sahara, and Golden Nugget.

Personnel

• Barry Gibb – lead vocals, harmony vocals, backing vocals, and rhythm guitar
• Robin Gibb – harmony vocals and backing vocals
• Maurice Gibb – bass, harmony vocals, and backing vocals
• Alan Kendall – lead guitar
• Dennis Bryon – drums
• Blue Weaver – Fender Rhodes electric piano, harpsichord, piano, and ARP String Ensemble

Ex-It version

In 1996, the Austrian music group Ex-It performed a cover of the song and achieved some success. Many parts of the original song were kept in this version, but additional rap sections were included. This cover appears on the compilations Dance Now! 14, Maxi Dance Sensation 21, and Hot Hits [TL 541/35].

The music video uses many elements from the movie Saturday Night Fever and makes fun of it. At the beginning of the video, a DJ plays the song while the main character and his girlfriend, who are in a tool shop, look around and watch the radio. They then get ready to go to a disco and are shown dancing for the rest of the video.