It took him decades to say it aloud. But now, at 79, Barry Gibb — the last surviving member of the Bee Gees — has finally spoken the words that reveal the deepest influence behind his songwriting soul. In a rare and intimate interview, the legendary musician opened up about the artist who shaped his emotional compass, the man whose voice once filled his teenage nights with longing and awe: Roy Orbison.
“Roy didn’t just sing songs,” Barry said quietly. “He became them. Every heartbreak, every tremor in his voice — that’s where I learned emotion.”
For Barry, who built one of the greatest catalogues in pop history, that confession felt almost sacred. His words carried the weight of six decades spent chasing melodies that could make people cry, love, or remember. And as he spoke, the influence of Orbison — the mysterious figure with the dark glasses and voice that could break hearts and bend time — seemed to echo through every phrase.
In the 1960s, long before Saturday Night Fever and global fame, the Gibb brothers were struggling in London, broke and uncertain. They shared a tiny flat, surviving on tea, toast, and dreams of making it big. On a battered record player, they played Orbison’s Crying and In Dreams until the grooves nearly wore out.
💬 “When we were broke and lost in London,” Barry remembered, “I’d listen to ‘Crying’ or ‘In Dreams,’ and suddenly I knew what a song could really do — make you feel something real. That’s when I realized: music wasn’t about perfection. It was about truth.”
That truth would go on to define the Bee Gees’ legacy. From To Love Somebody to How Deep Is Your Love, the emotional depth and vulnerability that Orbison championed became central to Barry’s songwriting. Orbison showed him that strength could exist in fragility — that a trembling note could sometimes carry more power than a scream.
For decades, Barry spoke of his influences — The Beatles, Elvis, country harmonies — but rarely did he let the world glimpse how deeply Roy Orbison’s spirit had imprinted on his artistry. Until now.
In the interview, Barry paused for a long moment before adding the line that left fans breathless.
“I never told him this when he was alive,” he said softly. “But everything I wrote after that… was me trying to reach the same truth Roy already found.”
It was a confession years in the making — one that bridged two eras of songwriting genius. Orbison’s Only the Lonely and Running Scared captured heartbreak with operatic beauty; Barry’s How Can You Mend a Broken Heart and Too Much Heaven carried that torch into a new generation. Both men understood that the purpose of song was not to impress, but to reveal.
Now, in his late seventies, Barry Gibb speaks not as a pop star or a survivor, but as a man tracing his own musical lineage — acknowledging the one artist whose emotion gave him permission to feel.
Roy Orbison may be gone, but through Barry’s words, his presence lingers — not as nostalgia, but as legacy. Two voices, two eras, one unbroken line of truth. And as Barry said with a quiet smile before leaving the interview, “Roy sang the pain we all hide. I just tried to keep it alive.”