Well, it's hard to describe how much I love this song.  This is one of those tunes that got regular airplay on the easy listening station in my little town when I was growing up, and I was addicted to the radio.  Let's start with some facts, and then we'll look under the hood, because this song has a wonderful backstory.

The song was a single released in 1972 from a successful album called "Baby I'm-a Want You".  It was a smash hit that climbed all the way to #5 on the Billboard Hot 100 in the US, #3 on the US Adult Contemporary chart, #5 in Canada, #12 in Australia, and broke into the top 40 in the UK.  

This song sounds like a romantic love song at first listen, but the real meaning is hiding in plain sight.  David Gates, the man with the heavenly voice who both sang and wrote the song, actually was paying tribute to his father.  He loved his father deeply, and was introduced to music as both a listener and creator by him.  David left home to pursue a life in music and in search of a recording contract in the early 1960s, and tragically shortly thereafter, his father passed away.  

David explained in various interviews and performances that his father would have been so very proud and thrilled to see David's success in the industry, and he wanted to write a song that expressed how much he missed him.  Lines like, "You gave my life to me, set me free, set me free", and "You sheltered me from harm, kept me warm, kept me warm"....when you know what David was really writing about, it's right there out in the open...but when you don't know it, you could easily assume he had a painful breakup and just wants the girl back.

I also love where he came up with the idea of, "Everything I Own".  David bought an orchid for his mother on her birthday one year when he was struggling so badly financially that he could hardly afford it.  She was so touched by the gesture that David's father wrote him a letter saying, "You can have anything she owns in return".  

I know what it's like to have pretty wonderful parents who help nurture your dreams and believe in you when you don't believe in yourself yet.  I also have some sense of what it's like to lose a parent early in life before you accomplish anything....not because it happened to me, but because it happened to my dad.  His dad passed away suddenly and unexpectedly at age 48, just a month before my dad graduated from college, and not quite two months before he married my mom....and my grandfather would have been VERY proud to have witnessed both things, let alone seeing my dad open his own business and raise three kids.

One day, sooner that I want to contemplate, I'll go through that loss, and I'm certain I won't have done all I have set out to do yet, and I'll have to cope with the same pain David Gates was feeling when he wrote this song.  I'm not particularly religious, but I tend to believe our essence lives on in some form....I think they're all still with us in some way or another.  But it's definitely not the same.  At least I certainly hope so.  Thanks David....this song is like a chef's kiss for me.

Enjoy my cover of this song from July 22, 2020 during I livestream concert I did in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, and then check out a great clip of Bread performing it in 1978 on the BBC in London. 

If you'd like to explore my piano method more deeply, my best students use my video courses and join me for conversation and twice monthly Q&A Livestreams in my private community...you can find it all HERE. Thanks.

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