Gloria Gaynor Says 'I Will Survive' Carried Her Through Her Own Darkest Days

Gloria Gaynor told "CBS Mornings" that "I Will Survive," the song that has motivated millions for nearly five decades, was first a lifeline for her.

Gaynor fell on stage at New York's Beacon Theatre in 1978 and suffered a serious spinal injury that left her in recovery for months. Many assumed her career was finished. During that painful stretch, she recorded the song that would become a global smash.

The track was intended as a B-side, but Gaynor said she knew immediately it was a winner. She recorded it standing in a back brace.

"[I was] hoping I'd survive, you know, this trauma that I was going through, hoping that I survived the fact that my mother had just passed away a few years prior," she said. "Yeah, I was living that song and I was certain that I wouldn't be the only one."

The song won a Grammy for best disco recording in 1980, the only year that category existed. In 2016 it was inducted into the Library of Congress' National Recording Registry for its cultural significance. It has been covered more than 200 times in over 20 languages and has spawned repeated waves of social media trends.

From Newark to the top of the charts

Before she was called the "queen of disco," Gaynor was a girl from Newark, New Jersey. Her talent went unnoticed until a neighbor heard her sing and she was called up to perform at a club one night. She went on to work the nightclub circuit, and a meeting with record executive Clive Davis became her break.

Her 1975 debut album, "Never Can Say Goodbye," was among the first disco albums to top the charts, cracking the top 25 of the Billboard 200. Early on she was singing R&B, she said, before deciding she wanted to give people music to dance to.

"I remember that discotheques were very, very new. There were just a couple and what they were was cabaret clubs where they'd just taken away the chairs," she recalled.

As disco faded in the 1980s, Gaynor kept touring internationally, later finding new purpose in faith and gospel music. Her 2019 album earned her another Grammy.

Now she is receiving a Kennedy Center Honor. "I got a phone call from my manager and I was ecstatic," she said. "It was incredible to even think about being accepted as one who deserved that."

Her advice to young artists is not to chase prizes. "I didn't strive to get a Grammy. I strive to do the best song I could do at that time. I strive to touch people's hearts," she said.