(The Hit Hammer is where I'm reviewing each #1 song on the Billboard Hot 100. Starting from when the chart started in 1958 and eventually working my way to the present. To see my inspiration and more information about this blog, please CLICK HERE)
Silver Convention - "Fly, Robin, Fly" Hit Number 1: November 29, 1975
Stay at Number 1: 3 Weeks
If there was one group that one-upped KC and the Sunshine Band as far as simple disco songs went, Silver Convention wins in a landslide. However, this was because it had to be that way. Silver Convention was a trio of girls, and they came from Germany. Because of this, all of the girls spoke German, and didn't know a lick of English, despite spending a significant amount of time in America in the mid '70s. I mean they knew zero English, you could walk up to one of them and tell them you thought their music sucked ass and you wished they would never record again, and they wouldn't know you just roasted the hell out of them. This is why when you listen to "Fly, Robin, Fly," you don't get much from these girls. Only "fly, robin, fly" and "up, up to the sky." English was literally a foreign language to them, and they couldn't memorize much more English than what was already in the song.
"Fly, Robin, Fly" wasn't even supposed to be "Fly, Robin, Fly" in its original form. The song was written by Sylvester Levay and Stephan Prager, with Levay suddenly coming up with the main riff while out on a walk. Levay and Prager were both producers with the Midland International label Silver Convention was signed to, and they both thought this new riff could be put to a song for them to record. Levay wasn't that impressed with the riff, even though he was the one that came up with it, but Prager thought different. He thought it would be an instant hit, and even came up with a title for it: "Run, Rabbit, Run." Levay didn't like that, he says, because of the Volkswagen Rabbit (but also, "Run, Rabbit, Run" is just a ridiculous and dumb name for a song) but he didn't want to upset Prager so he kept quiet. Later, Levay happened to hear a song on Armed Forces Network called "Run, Rabbit" so that saved the whole "Run, Rabbit, Run" thing from happening. He was relieved because he knew Prager wouldn't want it to seem like they were copying that song. Prager decided to rename the song to "Fly, Robin, Fly." A much cooler name for a song, that's for certain.
I don't want to take anything away from these disco artists, but it must've seemed so simple for them. I mean, "Fly, Robin, Fly" only has six words in it, "fly," "robin," up," "to," the," and "sky," and it becomes a #1 hit. It might as well have been an instrumental, and realistically speaking, it pretty much is. This didn't get to #1 because the Silver Convention girls were singing about something dramatic, or they were reaching these incredible ranges that made you think "Wow, these girls can sing." Don't get me wrong, they don't suck, but it doesn't take much to match what these girls are doing on this song. No, "Fly, Robin, Fly" became a massive hit because of the grooves it has. (Much like KC & the Sunshine Band's previous two #1 hits, along with a shit ton of other disco songs) The song is dominated by a string section and a thumping bass line, and these two instrumental sections do some catchy grooves. So catchy that they can drive you insane because of how memorable they are. In the case of "Fly, Robin, Fly" the instruments don't support the girls, the girls support the instruments. But even the one liner, "Fly, robin, fly/Up, up to the sky!" is memorable in its own right. "Fly, Robin, Fly" doesn't blow me away. Instead, it's just so damn catchy and the string section is so smooth and downright lovely when it breaks into that solo. It's the kind of song you can't forget, whether you want to or not.
Now revisiting the "Run, Rabbit, Run" thing, it's funny to think what they would've done with that. Like, you can't do "Up, up to the sky" with that. I think this is just another scenario where something happened the way it was supposed to. Even though the girls don't say much, that one line will probably stick in my head the rest of the day. That's some kind of powerful. I feel like it's also worth mentioning that Silver Convention made a little history when they hit #1. They were the first German group to hit #1, however they were not the first German act to hit #1 in America. That would have been Bert Kaempfert, who hit #1 in 1961 with "Wonderland by Night." Still, "Fly, Robin, Fly" was appealing enough to make this little bit of history happen, which is pretty cool.
Silver Convention weren't even a one hit wonder. They used this same format that worked for them on "Fly, Robin, Fly" with "Get Up and Boogie," a #2 hit for the trio in 1976. (It's a 6) Like "Fly, Robin, Fly," there's hardly any lyrics in that one, and the song relies on the fun disco grooves that were enough to make any song a hit in the late '70s. Those grooves aren't as strong as the ones in "Fly, Robin, Fly" and the band wasn't able to recreate that simple success a third time, but they still had their moment, and they did it with an absurdly simple, yet memorable and catchy tune. This is something we'll see a hell of a lot of as we get deeper into the heart of the disco era.
GRADE: 7/10
IN POP CULTURE:
I don't know much about this cover, but it appears like some random girl group named Bond covered "Fly, Robin, Fly." This is the only thing I could find to put here, and when I typed in "Fly, Robin, Fly cover" I had to scroll a ways to even find this. So here you go. With that being said, it's really not a bad cover:
Comments