How Can You Mend A Broken Heart

Album

Trafalgar

Label

ATCO Records

Genre

Folk-pop

Composer(s)

Barry Gibb,;Robin Gibb

Entered Chart

Jun 26, 1971

Peak Date

Aug 7, 1971

Released

28 May 1971

Recorded

28 January 1971 IBC Studios, London

Catalog #

Atco 45-6824

B-Side

Country Woman

Barry and Robin Gibb of the Bee Gees wrote this in the style of Andy Williams, who was a popular recording artist and television presenter at the time. It became the first #1 US hit for the group, topping the chart for four weeks. Later in 1971, Andy Williams identified it as a song in his wheelhouse and recorded his own version for his covers album You've Got a Friend. Despite the affected tale of heartache, this song was very easy to write, as Robin Gibb claims they wrote it in about an hour and without struggle or hardship. >> Al Green recorded this in 1972 for his album Let's Stay Together. His version was used in the 1999 movie Notting Hill. Green drew out his epic interpretation to nearly six and a half minutes. According to Mojo magazine, producer Willie Mitchell instructed the band to imagine "they were sitting by a river, a forest across the water, with all this music coming out of the forest and floating across the river, kind of delayed." This was written during the same afternoon as The Bee Gees' previous American hit, "Lonely Days" in Barry Gibb's basement flat at Addison Road, Holland Park, London.

I can think of younger days when living for my life
Was everything a man could want to do
I could never see tomorrow, .
But I was never told about the sorrow

How can you mend a broken heart?
How can you stop the rain from falling down?
How can you stop the sun from shining?
What makes the world go round?
How can you mend a this broken man?
How can a loser ever win?
Please help me mend my broken heart and let me live again

I can still feel the breeze that rustles through the trees
And misty memories of days gone by
We could never see tomorrow,
No one said a word about the sorrow

And how can you mend a broken heart?
How can you stop the rain from falling down?
How can you stop the sun from shining?
What makes the world go round?
And how can you mend this broken man?
How can a loser ever win?
Please help me mend my broken heart and let me live again

La la la la la la, la la la la
La la la la la la, la la la la

Please help me mend my broken heart and let me live again

Da da da da
Da da da da, da da da da da, da