Barry Gibb explains why The Bee Gees never recorded a Christmas song

Singer shares his views ahead of a new Bee Gees documentary

Sir Barry Gibb has said he believes modern Christmas songs are a “marketing trick”, citing this as his reason for why The Bee Gees never released their own festive track.

The closest the band came to a Christmas song – other than their “Fan Club Only” seven-inch released during the holidays in 1978 – was “First of May”, which begins: ‘When I was small and Christmas trees were tall.”

However, the song was released in February and addresses themes of regret and nostalgia.

“We've always avoided it. I think it was appropriate maybe 50 years ago,” Gibb told the BBC. “These days I think it's too much of a marketing trick.”

He noted that his late brother Robin’s final studio album was a Christmas record, titled My Favourite Christmas Carols, but added that he wasn’t involved with it.

Gibb’s comments come ahead of the release of a new feature-length documentary, The Bee Gees: How Can You Mend a Broken Heart, which covers the band’s origins, early career and rise to fame.

In a recent interview with The Guardian, Gibb revealed that he once had to “politely” ask Michael Jackson to leave his home after the late pop star overstayed his welcome.

The Bee Gees star worked with Jackson in 2002, shortly after the initial invasion of Iraq, with the pair writing a song responding to the conflict. However, Gibb suspected that Jackson had ulterior motives while collaborating.

“We sat around in my lounge for days at a time, just having fun, not really writing songs,” Gibb recalled.

“We came up with one, ‘All in My Name’, but we were never that serious about it. I think Michael was just trying to escape the legal environment he was trapped in, he was visiting people he knew that he could relate to, because he didn’t know who his friends were.”

He remembered: “He started to hang out at the house all the time and I had to get up in the morning; I’m 12 years older than him, I had to take my kids to school. At some point, I said: ‘Michael, wherever it is you’re going, you’ve got to go.’ So I politely asked Michael Jackson to leave my house because I couldn’t get anything else done.”

Gibb is the last surviving Bee Gee following the deaths of his brothers Robin, in 2012, and Maurice, in 2003. Their youngest brother Andy, who performed solo, died in 1988.

How Can You Mend a Broken Heart is released on 13 December on Sky Documentaries.