Barry Gibb: 'Bury me on Moreton Island' - In The Now With Tim Roxborogh Part 5

Barry Gibb as he appears on his new album.

Hearing Barry Gibb talk about where he wants to be buried – even if he chuckled as soon as he said it – seems significant to me. So with that in mind, here is part 5 of my transcribed interview series with him ahead of tomorrow’s release of his new album In The Now.

Once again, this is a series that I’ve done in addition to the articles I’ve written for the New Zealand Herald (out this Sunday) and the New Zealand Woman’s Weekly (this Wednesday). This RoxboroghReport.com series has been put together with an emphasis on content that might appeal to the biggest Bee Gees fans and you can see links to the previous sections below. You can also hear clips of this interview on the New Zealand radio station Newstalk ZB on Sunday October 9th between 8pm-11pm and on my iHeartRadio station ‘Coast Soul’ all next week.

This part of the interview begins with me asking about Barry’s return to his childhood home of Redcliffe in Queensland, Australia. And being he mentioned being buried, I couldn’t help but put a link to one of countless lesser-known Gibb songs that I love, the country and gospel influenced Bury Me Down By The River from Cucumber Castle (1969).

From my visit to Bee Gees Way in Redcliffe earlier this year.

Barry Gibb In The Now With Tim Roxborogh Part 5: ‘Bury me on Moreton Island’

TR: What was it like to go back to Australia recently to Redcliffe for Bee Gees Way stage 2 – I got to see that recently and I love it – and for you to go to Moreton Island where you’d looked at from the pier as a child and it’s sort of this paradisical place that you can’t quite get to… You finally got there as an adult! What was that like?

BG: An incredible experience. Alan Sutherland, the mayor of Redcliffe, and his wife took me to the island and as a 13 year old, a 12 year old maybe, we used to look at the island from Redcliffe and wonder what it was like. You couldn’t go there in those days, it was an old whaling station and of course now I learn that it was a military base during the war. But I didn’t know that and you could see this beautiful place and you could even see the white beaches, but you couldn’t go there. So, all of my life I’ve been trying to get to Moreton Island which eventually I called Bali Hai, sort of my nickname for it. “The island you can’t come to.”

TR: Is it almost disappointing to have finally gone there? Or did it live up to expectations?

BG: Oh no, quite the opposite. Enthralling, beautiful. I mean, beaches wider than I’d ever seen before and snow white sand. No, it was everything I hoped it was gonna’ be and it was as private as I hoped it was gonna’ be. There’s a few homes there now, but you know, when I kick it off mate, that’s where I wanna’ be. Bury me on Moreton Island (laughs).

TR: OK! Well, there’s something in a lot of people – there’s something in a lot of animals – and salmon want to go back to childhood!

BG: Yes! (laughs) That’s me!

TR: So why not? I love that you have that connection. It’s not that you spent the longest amount of time in Redcliffe, but there was something about that chapter in your lives that obviously meant a great deal to you.

BG: Yes, it set off a sort of romanticism, a wanderlust – how’s that? Always what’s over the next hill and always what’s round the corner.