Stayin' alive in time to beat
Well you can tell by the way I use my walk, I’m a woman’s man, no time to talk ...
As well as being an integral part of my own life philosophy, this is the opening lyric to one of popular music’s greatest songs, rivalling “Get up offa that thang” for expressive clarity.
The line, of course, is from the Brothers Gibb seminal Stayin’ Alive, the hip-swaying, groove-inducing opener from the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack.
These days, a Saturday night fever means I’ve got a head cold and have retired to bed with a vial of echinacea. But back in the day it meant something altogether different, a musical summation of what it was to be a young man – white suits, bouffed hair, gold medallions, dreams of sexual fumblings.
Now, there is even more reason to love Barry, Robin and Maurice’s crowning disco glory. Because the Bee Gees may have saved your soul – and now they could very well save your life, too.
Researchers in the United States have discovered the intoxicating, thumping beat of Stayin’ Alive is the ideal rhythm at which to perform cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR).
The song contains 103 beats per minute.
The American Heart Association recommends 100 beats for effective CPR but shunned using Queen’s Another One Bites The Dust (bang on 100) for fear of sending out the wrong message.
And no one, least of all a dying heart attack victim, is going to quibble over three extra beats.
For the study, 15 medics performed CPR on a dummy while listening to Stayin’ Alive on iPods. They were also encouraged to wear Cuban heels and sing in falsetto.
On average, they hit 109 compressions a minute with the help of the Bee Gees’ aural aide-mémoire.
The experiment will have given extra resonance to the song’s outro reprise: “Life goin’ nowhere. Somebody help me.”
The lesson clearly stuck and when the team was re-tested five weeks later its members delivered a rate of 113, well within the acceptable range.
They didn’t have iPods and were asked to invoke the funky beat of the 1977 hit. So why isn’t this stuff obligatory in schools?
And I don’t mean disco studies, although I’d support that idea, too.
There is a perennial hoo-hah over sex education but as far as I am aware there is no curriculum requirement for first-aid.
For this reason, I interrupted my nine-year-old’s maths homework, thrust the lyrics to Stayin’ Alive into her hands and got her to dig the groove.
Who knows, her burgeoning love of the Bee Gees might just save your life.
And remember, whether you’re a brother or whether you’re a mother, you’re stayin’ alive.
