It’s a timeless lyric that addresses a timeless concern.”ġ978 wasn’t the best of years for Gaynor. “I love the empowering effect, I love the encouraging effect. Not only was she in a physical imposition to relate to the sentiments of the song, but she felt it had a timeless message. They took the gig, and Gaynor agreed to record I Will Survive as the B-side. That diva was Gloria Gaynor, whose record company, Polydor, called Perren looking for production work on her cover of a Righteous Brothers song from 1975 called Substitute. The pair agreed that the next diva that came their way would get the song. Sweet revenge on their former erstwhile employers, perhaps, but by 1978 they had I Will Survive in the can but nobody to sing it. When Fekaris and his songwriting partner Freddie Perren were relieved of their Motown duties, they formed their own production duo and before the decade was out scored big with Peaches & Herb, taking Reunited to No.1 on the Billboard Hot 100. I remember jumping up and down on the bed saying, ‘I’m going to make it. I took that as an omen that things were going to work out for me. I turned the TV on, and there it was: a song I had written for a movie theme titled Generation was playing right then (performed by Rare Earth). I was an unemployed songwriter contemplating my fate. “They let me go after almost seven years. For the song’s lyricist, Dino Fekaris, the inspiration was about getting fired by Motown Records, where he was The Corporation’s staff writer who’d given the Jackson 5 their first three hits (I Want You Back, ABC, The Love You Save), among others. Or is it? Over the years, it has taken on meaning for people who have overcome just about any difficult situation, though the original subject matter was rather more mundane. This paean to female empowerment is about moving on after a bad relationship. It became an anthem for dancers, the gay liberation movement and anyone sobbing over a bottle of wine and nursing a broken heart.
Simultaneously marking the zenith and end of a decade dominated by disco, this ultimate ‘moving on’ song (first released the previous October on Gaynor’s album Love Tracks) provided a capstone and also served as one of the final mile markers in a cultural phenomenon that was dominant for much of the preceding decade. A triumphant if bittersweet anthem to the oppressed and the depressed the world over, Gloria Gaynor’s I Will Survive, undoubtedly the most famous survival song of them all, entered the UK charts a very very long time ago, on 30 January 1979 to be precise. It’s the disco song to end all disco songs, and the ultimate karaoke tune.
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