"You Win Again" is a song written by

Barry Barry may refer to: People and fictional characters * Barry (name), including lists of people with the given name, nickname or surname, as well as fictional characters with the given name * Dancing Barry, stage name of Barry Richards (born c. 195 ...

Robin Robin may refer to: Animals * Australasian robins, red-breasted songbirds of the family Petroicidae * Many members of the subfamily Saxicolinae (Old World chats), including: **European robin (''Erithacus rubecula'') ** Bush-robin **Forest r ...

and

Maurice Gibb Maurice Ernest Gibb (; 22 December 1949 – 12 January 2003) was a British musician. He achieved fame as a member of the pop group Bee Gees. Although his elder brother Barry Gibb and fraternal twin brother Robin Gibb were the group's main lea ...

and performed by the

Bee Gees The Bee Gees were a musical group formed in 1958 by brothers Barry Gibb, Barry, Robin Gibb, Robin, and Maurice Gibb. The trio were especially successful in popular music in the late 1960s and early 1970s, and later as prominent performers in ...

. The song was produced by the brothers, Arif Mardin and Brian Tench. It was released as the first single on 7 September 1987 by

Warner Records Warner Records Inc. (formerly Warner Bros. Records Inc.) is an American record label. A subsidiary of the Warner Music Group, it is headquartered in Los Angeles, California. It was founded on March 19, 1958, as the recorded music division of the ...

, from their seventeenth studio album '' E.S.P.'' (1987). It was also their first single released from the record label. The song marked the start of the group's comeback, becoming a No. 1 hit in many European countries, including topping the

UK Singles Chart The UK Singles Chart (currently titled Official Singles Chart, with the upper section more commonly known as the Official UK Top 40) is compiled by the Official Charts Company (OCC), on behalf of the British record industry, listing the top-s ...

—their first to do so in over eight years—and making them the first group to score a UK No. 1 hit in each of three decades: the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s. As songwriters, the Gibb brothers received the 1987 British Academy's

Ivor Novello award The Ivor Novello Awards, named after the entertainer Ivor Novello, are awards for songwriting and composing. They have been presented annually in London by the Ivors Academy (formerly the BASCA) since 1956, and over 1,000 statuettes have been ...

for Best Song Musically and Lyrically. In 1988, the band received a Brit Award nomination for Best British Group. In a UK television special on ITV in December 2011, it was voted second (behind " How Deep Is Your Love") on '' The Nation's Favourite Bee Gees Song''.

Reception

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'' called it "a melodic soft-pop number guaranteed to see instant attention".

Recording

Barry Gibb Sir Barry Alan Crompton Gibb (born 1 September 1946) is a British musician, singer-songwriter and record producer. He rose to worldwide fame as a member of the Bee Gees, one of the most commercially successful groups in the history of popula ...

wrote the melody while his brother Maurice conceived the drum machine sounds in his garage. On "1000 UK #1 Hits" by Jon Kutner and Spencer Leigh, Robin Gibb said "We absolutely thought that 'You Win Again' was going to be a big hit. It took us a month to cut it and get the right mix." Maurice Gibb explained "You Win Again" in a May 2001 interview with ''

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'':

"When we get together and write, it's not like three individuals ― it's like one person in the room. Usually, we have a book of titles and we just pick one. I loved 'You Win Again' as a title, but we had no idea how it might turn out as a song. It ended up as a big demo in my garage, and I recorded stomps and things. There was just one drum on there. The rest was just sounds. Then, everybody tried to talk us out of the stomps at the start. They didn't want it. 'Take it off. Too loud! Can we have them not on the intro, just when the music starts?' All this stuff, but as soon as you hear that 'jabba-doomba, jabba-doomba' on the radio, you know it's us. It's a signal. So, that's one little secret ― give people an automatic identification of who it is."

Chart performance

"You Win Again" was a number one single in the UK, Ireland, Switzerland, Germany, Austria, Denmark and Norway, and reached the top ten in Italy, the Netherlands, Australia and Sweden. It also topped the Eurochart for four weeks. "You Win Again" entered the

at No. 87 in the chart week 19 September. Four weeks later, it reached number one, where it remained for four weeks, thus preventing

George Michael George Michael (born Georgios Kyriacos Panayiotou; 25 June 1963 – 25 December 2016) was an English singer and songwriter. He is considered one of the most significant cultural icons of the MTV generation and is one of the best-selling music ...

's single "

Faith Faith, derived from Latin ''fides'' and Old French ''feid'', is confidence or trust in a person, thing, or In the context of religion, one can define faith as "belief in God or in the doctrines or teachings of religion". Religious people ofte ...

" from reaching the top spot. When the single reached number one in the UK in mid-October 1987, it marked the Bee Gees as the first group to score a UK number one hit in each of three decades: the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s. It ranked four in the UK's year-end singles sales chart. "You Win Again" was less successful in the US, peaking at No. 75 on ''Billboard'''s

Hot 100 The ''Billboard'' Hot 100 is the music industry standard record chart in the United States for songs, published weekly by '' Billboard'' magazine. Chart rankings are based on sales (physical and digital), radio play, and online streaming ...

, perhaps down to a lingering association between the Bee Gees and the disco backlash that emerged in 1979, when the group (disco icons at the time) were at the height of their fame. Their next charting single, the 1989 hit "

One 1 (one, unit, unity) is a number representing a single or the only entity. 1 is also a numerical digit and represents a single unit of counting or measurement. For example, a line segment of ''unit length'' is a line segment of length 1. I ...

", returned them to the US top ten. Hoping to capitalize on that success, the song was rereleased as the followup; while it did receive renewed airplay on a number of US radio stations, it did not chart this time.

Formats

"You Win Again" was released commercially on

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and cassette. The

CD single A CD single (sometimes abbreviated to CDS) is a music single in the form of a compact disc. The standard in the Red Book for the term ''CD single'' is an 8 cm (3-inch) CD (or Mini CD). It now refers to any single recorded onto a CD of any s ...

was not common in the late 1980s, though a 1-track CD single was produced as a promo-only copy given to radio stations and reviewers in the United States and a 1988 2-track mini CD single was commercially released in Japan. The song also appeared as a bonus track on the American version of ''

'', replacing the song "Wing and a Prayer".

Releases and track listings

Personnel

Personnel are adapted from the album '' E.S.P.'' *

–

lead vocals The lead vocalist in popular music is typically the member of a group or band whose voice is the most prominent melody in a performance where multiple voices may be heard. The lead singer sets their voice against the accompaniment parts of the ...

and

backing vocals A backing vocalist is a singer who provides vocal harmony with the lead vocalist or other backing vocalists. A backing vocalist may also sing alone as a lead-in to the main vocalist's entry or to sing a counter-melody. Backing vocalists are ...

guitar The guitar is a fretted musical instrument that typically has six strings. It is usually held flat against the player's body and played by strumming or plucking the strings with the dominant hand, while simultaneously pressing selected string ...

s *

Robin Gibb Robin Hugh Gibb (22 December 1949 – 20 May 2012) was a British singer and songwriter. He gained worldwide fame as a member of the Bee Gees pop group with elder brother Barry and fraternal twin brother Maurice. Robin Gibb also had his o ...

– backing vocals *

–

synthesizers A synthesizer (also spelled synthesiser) is an electronic musical instrument that generates audio signals. Synthesizers typically create sounds by generating waveforms through methods including subtractive synthesis, additive synthesis a ...

and backing vocals *

Robbie Kondor Robbie Kondor is an American composer, session musician, and arranger. He has worked as a composer on '' The Significant Other'', '' Ball In The House'', ''Sally Jessy Raphael'', ''Happiness'' (1998), ''The Suburbans'' (1999), ''Forever Fabulous'' ...

– synthesizers * Rhett Lawrence – drum machine

Charts

Weekly charts

Year-end charts

Certifications and sales

References

{{Authority control 1987 songs 1987 singles Bee Gees songs European Hot 100 Singles number-one singles Irish Singles Chart number-one singles Number-one singles in Austria Number-one singles in Germany Number-one singles in Norway Number-one singles in Switzerland Song recordings produced by Arif Mardin Song recordings produced by Barry Gibb Song recordings produced by Robin Gibb Song recordings produced by Maurice Gibb Songs written by Barry Gibb Songs written by Maurice Gibb Songs written by Robin Gibb British synth-pop songs UK Singles Chart number-one singles Warner Music Group singles Warner Records singles