... and I don't know why it was a hit either. I thought it was awful then. I think it is awful now. I have always thought that this song was awful. I didn't know who Rick Dees was - apparently a DJ with a 40 year career. I believed he was just a one hit wonder who happened to write and perform the worst song in history. Thanks to Todd , a shadowy figure who reviews rock history, for validating that opinion. Although I still think "Ring My Bell" (1979) gives it a run for its money.
Strangely enough, this song was mentioned on the HBO documentary about the Bee Gees that came out in December "How Do You Mend a Broken Heart". Almost a perfect documentary, the one mistake I knew it made was crediting this song for being part of the death of disco and by extension putting a knife through the heart of the Bee Gees' third act of a career due to the group's close association to disco because they wrote and performed the music for "Saturday Night Fever". Actually, as Todd mentions, this came out in 1976, three years before the backlash over disco.
Todd mentions how it is also strange that as bad as this song is, how he had no trouble finding video footage of it being performed on TV on all three networks. The final irony - RSO records, which published the Bee Gees' records, also published Disco Duck.