If

Album

Single

Label

Elektra Records

Genre

Soft Rock

Composer(s)

David Gates

Entered Chart

Mar 27, 1971

Peak Date

May 15, 1971

Released

March 21, 1971

Recorded

Unknown

Catalog #

Elektra 45720

B-Side

Take Comfort

This acoustic ballad is one of Bread's trademark tunes. The band's keyboardist David Gates said: "I wrote that one night at the dining room table, after my kids and my wife had gone to bed. It took me about an hour and a half, with an extra verse left over. If you look at it, there's a few bizarre lines in there, like 'you and I would simply fly away' - that's kind of an unusual thought. When I was done, I said, 'That's the best song I've ever written and probably will be the best song I'll ever write.' For me it's really held up over time, more than any of the others." >> Dolly Parton covered this on her 2002 bluegrass album, Halos & Horns. Her version was released as a single in Europe and peaked at #73 in the UK. Kojak actor Telly Savalas recorded a spoken-word version that went to #1 in the UK in 1975.

If a picture paints a thousand words
Then why can't I paint you?
The words will never show the you I've come to know
If a face could launch a thousand ships
Then where am I to go?
There's no one home but you
You're all that's left me to
And when my love for life is running dry
You come and pour yourself on me

If a man could be two places at one time
I'd be with you
Tomorrow and today, beside you all the way
If the world should stop revolving spinning slowly down to die
I'd spend the end with you
And when the world was through
Then one by one the stars would all go out
Then you and I would simply fly away