“I
would give everything I own,
Just
to have you back again.”—David Gates, “Everything I Own,” from the Bread LP Baby I'm-a Want You (1972)
For
nearly 50 years, I had interpreted Bread’s “Everything I Own” as a song of
romantic loss. Then, after listening to a different hit from this Seventies MOR
band on YouTube, I became curious about this live version of the tune,
performed solo by Gates more than two decades after it rose up the charts.
Listening
to his introduction, I was astonished to hear the singer-songwriter say he had
written it not after the loss of a wife or sweetheart, but after the death of
his father. This time, I paid attention more closely to the lyrics. Yes, I
could see that this time.
I
wondered how Gates could have expressed my feelings now, exactly one year after
the death of my father (pictured). But I guess that’s why we have musicians: to
wring harmony out of our individual emotional confusion, to find the words to
say simply what we don’t know how to.
