Ahead of your new album Greenfields: The Gibb Brothers Songbook, Vol. 1, scheduled for January 8, Barry Gibb released another track outside the project: a collaboration with Dolly Parton on “Words”. Originally released as a single by Bee Gees in 1968, the song was written by Barry, Robin and Maurice Gibb.
Parton begins this particularly tender version of “Words”, singing the first verse about the hope of starting “a new story” on a melancholy piano. Gibb arrives shortly thereafter, and he and Parton bring the song to its end, with the steel guitar accentuating the emotion of the lyrics: “They are just words, and words are all I have to take your heart away”. “Words” was recorded or performed by several artists, including Elvis Presley, Glen Campbell, Roy Orbison and Rita Coolidge.
LP producer Dave Cobb said Rolling Stone earlier this month, the recording of “Words” was the first session of the album. He admits he was nervous when Dolly Parton and Barry Gibb joined RCA Studio A. “I remember walking over to where I would play guitar and my legs started to shake. I just registered the weight of these two ”, he says. “They are bigger than legends, they are icons and they are right there.”
green fields it also features interpretations of Bee Gees classics like “Jive Talkin ‘” with Miranda Lambert, “Words of a Fool” with Jason Isbell and “Butterfly” with Gillian Welch and David Rawlings.