Thomas Engström had collaboration with about fifty artists over the years in various forms, in the 70’s singers in the Anglo-Swedish rock band Shaggy, headhunted to Belgian hard rock band Castro and later on to Gothenburg based Highway with a couple of former members from Alien. Four solo albums with his ”alter ego” Joshua af Saga now releasing his 5th solo single under his own name. The 5th of twelve to become the album ”Pure Pop”
”Heartbreaker” was written by Barry, Robin and Maurice Gibb from The Bee Gees for singer Dionne Warwick’s same-titled album. The song blended the Gibb brothers’ two schools of songwriting: it has the clear verse and chorus structure favored by Robin and Maurice, yet also has the longer spun-out verses Barry now preferred, both well balanced, so that it has instant appeal but takes repeated listenings to fully appreciate. The melody is reminiscent of ”Living Eyes”, but the song has a much stronger forward motion. Maurice said later that he wished they had saved it for themselves. The Bee Gees’ demo version, sung by Barry, was not released until 2006 when it appeared on The Heartbreaker demos (2006), the group’s demo album of Warwick’s album.
Warwick admitted in The Billboard Book of Number One Adult Contemporary Hits by Wesley Hyatt that she was not fond of ”Heartbreaker” (regarding the song’s international popularity, she quipped, ”I cried all the way to the bank”), but recorded it because she trusted the Bee Gees’ judgment that it would be a hit. Maurice Gibb, who co-wrote the song, commented, ”I cried my eyes out after we wrote it. I drove home and thought, ’We should be doing this one’, and when she did it, it was brilliant. We sang on it, and it still became like a duet between the Bee Gees and Dionne Warwick”
