It's a touching line in one of the Bee Gees' saddest songs, and for singer Robin Gibb's son, Robin-John Gibb, it was a line he wanted to share with his father just minutes after the musician died on May 20.
Robin-John, 29, known as RJ, told the British newspaper Sunday Express the band's 1968 tune "I Started a Joke" played a role in his farewell to his father.
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Robin Gibb: 1949-2012
Said Gibb, "One of my favorite Bee Gee songs, 'I Started A Joke,' has the line: ‘I finally died, which started the whole world living’ and I played it on my phone, put it on Dad’s chest and we sat together. I’d tried to hold it all in until then but that’s when I bawled like a baby."
Gibb also said that he heard the same song in a restaurant the night after his father died, and that it was played at the exact time Robin Gibb had passed away. "We all fell silent and listened to it," he told the newspaper. "I just broke down and cried.”
Robin Gibb's family used music in an attempt to help the Bee Gees founder come out of his coma back in April, singing and playing familiar songs at his hospital bedside. The singer did awaken from the coma, but died about a month later.
His son says his father's cancer had actually gone into remission and was too small to detect, but that kidney failure eventually killed the singer. He was 62. His brothers Andy and Maurice preceded him in death.
RJ Gibb said a private funeral will be held in June, and will include Bee Gees tracks, Gibb's favorite hymns and possibly songs by the late Roy Orbison, a friend of Robin Gibb. A public memorial service is scheduled to be held at London's St Paul's Cathedral in September.
"I haven’t just lost a father, I’ve also lost my best friend," RJ Gibb said.
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