At first, I was afraid, I was petrified / Kept thinking I could never live without you by my side, “I Will Survive” twinkles to life in a wave of keys. Flush with singable lyrics and a dance-ready beat, disco and the definitive 1970s hit became inseparable, and they still are today.
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As the tune suggests, the Gloria Gaynor mirrorball bop has stood the test of time, so who were the songwriters of such a long-lasting classic?
Who Wrote It?
“I Will Survive” was written by Freddie Perren and Dino Fekaris in 1978. The latter was the main lyricist and the song and detailed his feelings surrounding being let go from his songwriting position at Motown Records a few years earlier.
“They let me go after almost seven years,” Fekaris has been quoted as saying. “I was an unemployed songwriter contemplating my fate. I turned the TV on, and there it was: a song I had written for a movie theme titled Generation was playing right then (the song was performed by Rare Earth). I took that as an omen that things were going to work out for me. I remember jumping up and down on the bed saying, ‘I’m going to make it. I’m going to be a songwriter. I will survive!”
A soon-to-be-hit was born during that time of uncertainty. While the song recounts a story of female empowerment and the assertion of independence from a former lover, “I Will Survive” took on a different meaning for the song’s writer, as well as its singer.
During the song’s recording process, Gaynor was reportedly suffering from back pain caused by spinal surgery. “Whenever I sang ‘I Will Survive’ at that time, I was relating it to my recovering from spine surgery,” the singer recalled in her autobiography I Will Survive: The Book.
“The word was going around after my accident that ‘the Queen of Disco is Dead’ so one of my main thoughts was that my career would now survive,” she continued. “And in a funny way also, it felt as though it had to do with surviving the death of my mother. I know the song is about abusive relationships and women asserting their independence from men, and for most people, that’s what they identify with. I have suffered in that way myself, of course, but for some reason, I never think of that when I sing it.”
Originally released as a B-side to Gaynor’s “Substitute,” the song soon climbed the charts and would be cemented in disco’s legacy as one of the genre’s definitive dance tracks.
(Photo by Eric BOUVET/Gamma-Rapho via Getty Images)
