Robin Gibb is dead.

 I wearied quickly of reading headlines about the death of the disco king and tasteless jokes about trying to remember which Spice Girl he was. I have to remind myself that these come from people who do not know what I know. I have to remind myself to feel sorry for them and not to take umbrage.

In my Bee Gees iTunes playlist I have 106 songs. This is pitiful, I know, compared to the thousand or more that actually exist. But I forgive myself by thinking of the additional stack of Bee Gees CD’s I own, the VHS recordings of their TV specials from the 1990’s, and my instinctive need to watch Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band when I am sick or depressed.

"Jive Talkin’" is not on my playlist.

Neither is "Stayin’ Alive."

Neither is "Too Much Heaven."

It is not because I do not think these songs are great. (Well, to be perfectly frank, I have never liked Too Much Heaven. It is so full of clichés and came so soon after the moving “How Deep is Your Love” that I cannot take it seriously.) I do not have these songs on my iPod because, unlike the rest of the world, I heard these songs in their day, enjoyed them, and moved on to the next album. The rest of the world kept listening to them over and over and over, thinking these were the pinnacle of the Gibb body of work. Fools.

Even now, when I mention that I am a Bee Gees fan, I can judge the Gibbtelligence of my listener by his or her reply.

“Oh, I LOVE Saturday Night Fever!” Idiot.

“Oh, yes, I remember them from the 1960’s. They were twins, weren’t they?” Moron.

“I love the Bee Gees, too. I thought ‘Size Isn’t Everything’ was a great album, but ‘One’ is my absolute favorite.” Soul mate.

The day after Robin died, I went to Maloo’s with Rob-in. (I’ve taken to calling him “Rob-in” lately. He doesn’t mind.) Rob-in put some money in the juke box and played a mix of REM, U2, and Cake.

“Where are the Gibbs?” I asked him.

 “You know they don’t have any Bee Gees.” They do have “Jive Talkin', but Rob-in knows that doesn’t count in my esteem. The tavern owner, a nice man who remembers me from high school, offered to play some Bee Gees from his bartender’s iPod.

“What do you like? What’s your favorite?”

My favorite? Robin was my favorite. But I stayed my moroseness and considered. Probably, nice as Mike is, he meant for me to pick my favorites from among the SNF collection, with “How Can You Mend a Broken Heart” thrown in for good measure. So I shrugged and said, “Anything. I love them all,” which was true at that moment. Rob-in, helpful as always, informed Mike to skip “Too Much Heaven.”

“Run to Me” began to play. Not only that, but the old man at the other end of the bar lifted his chin and sang along.

“Now and then, you need someone older, so darliiiiiiiiiin’, you run to me.” 

After that, “Nights on Broadway,” Rob-in’s favorite.

Then a selection from Still Waters.

One after the other, from early decades to the later albums, the Bee Gees played.

The couple next to us at the bar began discussing this loudly.

 “One of them just died, didn’t they?” the woman said.

“Yeah,” the man replied. “I think so. I think it was Robin.”

“They was twins, wasn’t they,” she said. “Him and...what was his name? Maureeece?”

“Maurice,” I corrected her, though she was not talking to me. I simply could not let the ignorance go uncorrected. “It’s pronounced Maurice. Like the cat.”

 She squinted at me. “Are you sure?”

I laughed, not a happy laugh, but a laugh of absolute astonishment that this woman had the audacity to question my knowledge of the Bee Gees. “Yes, I am sure,” I said slowly, so she would understand. “It is pronounced Maurice. They are British. That is the British pronunciation. Maureece is the French pronunciation.”

A light went on, and she nodded. “Ah! That explains it,” she said. “I’m French!”

Of course you are.

We stayed for a long time. No one, not even the regulars, challenged the continual stream of Gibb melodies by starting up the juke box. No one shouted, “Turn that crap down!” In fact, they sang along, or at least nodded along, and occasionally commented that they loved this or that song, and did not realize it was the Bee Gees.

It was a weeknight, and the place closed early. One by one the guests began to leave.  By eleven, Rob-in and I had the place to ourselves. The music continued to play in the otherwise quiet room as Mike wiped the tables and arranged the chairs under them, blowing out ambiance candles and turning the lights down. We paid our bill, and I thanked my old classmate for his generous understanding of my grief. Rob-in and I drove home in silence, not even listening to the Bee Gees compilation that was in my CD player.

I felt a peace imagining tonight’s bar patrons driving home humming the tunes they had heard at Maloo’s, maybe searching for them on the radio or making a mental note to download a few. I felt I had done my part to honor Robin, and I wondered if, all over the world, taverns, restaurants, and other businesses were honoring him, too.

“Go on with your song, bird. 
 You can’t go wrong, my bird. 
You will go on and on, bird, through the open door.” 

I lied. I totally have “Stayin’ Alive” on my iPod.
Duh.