How Can You Mend a Broken Heart: Written in Under an Hour

It took the Bee Gees about an hour to write this song.

Barry and Robin Gibb wrote How Can You Mend a Broken Heart the same week they patched up a real rift in the band.

They almost gave it away to another singer entirely.

It became the group's first American number one instead.

Then it did something stranger.

It never charted at all back home in Britain.

Here's the real story behind the song.

That includes the studio session that made it, and the cover that outdid it in the one country it missed.

Barry, Robin, and Maurice Gibb of the Bee Gees performing on The Midnight Special in 1973, two years after How Can You Mend a Broken Heart became their first US number one

The Bee Gees performing on NBC's The Midnight Special, 1973.

Image credit: NBC Television, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

How Can You Mend a Broken Heart Started With a Breakup

The Bee Gees split apart in 1969, not long after their early run of baroque pop hits.

Robin Gibb left to chase a solo career.

Barry and Maurice carried on for a while without him, then the whole thing quietly fell apart.

By August 1970 the brothers had patched things up and were back in the same room.

Written for Someone Else, Kept for Themselves

Robin came to Barry's house that month, and the two of them sat down to write.

Barry has said the session felt like the moment the group actually came back together.

It wasn't just a business decision.

The pair first pictured the song in the voice of Andy Williams, the smooth easy-listening star of the era.

Once they heard how their own two voices sat against each other on the demo, they changed their minds.

Robin later described the whole song coming together in about an hour, start to finish, in one sitting.

A Songwriting Credit That Took 38 Years to Arrive

Maurice Gibb was in the room for much of the Bee Gees' 1970s writing process, this song included.

Early pressings credited only Barry and Robin as writers.

That changed in 2009, when the career-spanning box set Ultimate Bee Gees finally listed all three brothers as co-writers.

Curious how this fits into the group's full arc?

Read the Bee Gees story in full, from a name that never meant "Brothers Gibb" to disco's biggest act.

Inside IBC Studios, January 1971

The Bee Gees recorded the song on January 28, 1971.

The session took place at IBC Studios in London.

Robert Stigwood produced the session alongside the group itself.

Barry and Robin trade the lead vocal through the verses instead of one brother carrying it alone.

That back-and-forth is part of what makes the recording feel like a real conversation, not a solo confession.

What Maurice Actually Played

Maurice Gibb handled harmony vocals along with bass, piano, and Hammond organ on the track.

Drummer Geoff Bridgford filled out the rhythm section.

Arranger Bill Shepherd wrote the orchestral strings that swell under the second half of the song.

Curious what other slow-burning deep cuts fit this same mood? Try the Mood Song Matcher to find more.

Prefer to just hear it?

Stream How Can You Mend a Broken Heart on Listen Now, or watch the original recording below.

A US Number One That Never Charted at Home

Polydor released the song on May 28, 1971.

It was the lead single from the album Trafalgar.

It reached number one on the Billboard Hot 100 that August, the Bee Gees' first American chart-topper.

This site's own weekly chart data confirms it held that top spot for four straight weeks.

Its run lasted from August 7 through September 3, 1971.

It also picked up a Grammy nomination for Best Pop Vocal Performance by a Duo or Group.

The Number That Doesn't Mean What It Looks Like

This site's own song database lists a billboard_peak field of 5 for this track.

Read on its own, that number looks like a modest chart placement.

It's actually the song's rank on Billboard's year-end chart for all of 1971, not its real weekly peak.

The song's true weekly high was number one, confirmed against this site's own week-by-week chart data.

Flagging it here so the field isn't misread.

A similar mixup was already caught and corrected on this site's ABBA Waterloo post.

The Chart That Ignored It Completely

Despite that US run, How Can You Mend a Broken Heart never once appeared on the UK Singles Chart.

Not a low placement, not a brief one-week entry. Nothing at all.

The Bee Gees were a British-Australian group.

Their first true American breakthrough was a song their own home country's chart never registered at all.

Want to see how strange this decade's chart record can get?

Try the Random 70s Song Generator and see what else turns up.

The Cover That Finished What the Original Couldn't

Soul singer Al Green recorded his own version of How Can You Mend a Broken Heart in 1972.

It appeared on his album Let's Stay Together, built around the title track that became his own signature hit.

Green's version did something the Bee Gees' original never managed.

It charted in the UK, going on to earn a Silver certification there.

Read the fuller story of that same era in the Al Green profile on this site.

A Second Life in Movie Theaters

Green's cover kept finding new audiences decades after its release.

Filmmakers used it repeatedly through the late 1990s, including in three well-remembered movies.

Good Will Hunting (1997)
The Virgin Suicides (1999)
Notting Hill (1999)

Green's smoky, understated reading is now the more familiar version in much of the world outside the US.

The Bee Gees wrote a song about a broken heart mending.

It took someone else's voice to actually fix it in Britain.

There's more of the decade's real chart stories at Music of the 70s.

Frequently Asked Questions

How long did it take the Bee Gees to write How Can You Mend a Broken Heart?

Barry and Robin Gibb wrote How Can You Mend a Broken Heart in about an hour at Barry's home in August 1970.

The session came right after the brothers patched up a rift that had briefly split the group apart.

Robin later said the whole song came together that fast, in one sitting.

Did the Bee Gees almost give this song to another singer?

The Bee Gees first pictured this song sung by easy listening star Andy Williams, not themselves.

Barry and Robin changed course once they heard how their two voices sat together on the demo.

They kept it, and it became their first American number one instead of someone else's album cut.

Did How Can You Mend a Broken Heart reach number one in the UK?

How Can You Mend a Broken Heart failed to chart at all on the UK Singles Chart. That's despite topping the US Hot 100 for four weeks in 1971.

Al Green's 1972 cover succeeded in Britain where the Bee Gees' own version never registered.

His cover earned a UK Silver certification the original song itself never reached.

Who sang lead vocals on How Can You Mend a Broken Heart?

Barry and Robin Gibb trade lead vocal lines throughout the song, rather than one brother singing it alone.

Maurice Gibb added harmony vocals along with bass, piano, and Hammond organ.

Bill Shepherd wrote the orchestral string arrangement recorded with the band at IBC Studios in London.

What movies have used Al Green's cover of the song?

Al Green's 1972 cover has turned up in several well-known films. That list includes Good Will Hunting in 1997, The Virgin Suicides in 1999, and Notting Hill in 1999.

In much of the world outside the US, Green's version is now the more recognized recording of the song.