Though not apparent on first listen, 'I've Gotta Get A Message To You' is another death song in the same 'tradition' as 'Green Green Grass Of Home', this time sung from the point of view of a death row prisoner awaiting the chair and trying to get a last message to his wife (whose lover he murdered, hence his predicament). A contrived scenario for sure and one that demands a certain suspension of belief on the part of the listener to make it work, not least because of the broad brush work that paints it. Yet while I'm generally happy to play ball, 'I've Gotta Get A Message To You' lands too far beyond the pale for me to be taken in this time.Ironically for a band who would later have a hit with a song called 'Tragedy', tragedy itself is something the Bee Gees were never at home with. Heartbreak yes, but 'I've Gotta Get A Message To You' is too clumsy in its execution to hit the nerve of empathy/sympathy it's aiming at. Like a surgeon wearing boxing gloves to operate, it crudely hacks out its story via the Gibb's over the top plead "I've just gotta get a message to you, hold on, hold on. One more hour and my life will be through" serving only to rub its blood in your face as the music goes about its own brash and brittle business of creating drama out of nothing. 'I've Gotta Get A Message To You' does its best, but there's a yawning chasm between intent and result that's never going to bridged with an emotional connection no matter how much hard core, hand wrung angst the band pour into it.
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