David Gates, the undisputed architect of the soft rock ballad, built a career on quietly devastating love songs as the frontman of ’70s-era soft rock pioneers Bread. From “Lost Without Your Love” and “If” to “Diary” and “Make It With You,” the classically trained musician keenly captures unrequited love and the pain of moving on. But few songs crystalize emotional heft more deftly than the band’s 1972 ballad “Everything I Own.”
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Now is a good time to grab the Kleenex.
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A timeless tribute to love and loss, “Everything I Own” was the second single released from Bread’s 1972 landmark album, Baby I’m-a Want You. And even though it’s often mistaken as a romantic love ballad, Gates actually wrote the lyrics about the loss of his father.
According to the Jon Kutner and Spencer Leigh book,1000 UK #1 Hits, via Songfacts, a friend shared with Gates at his father’s funeral, “Your dad was so proud of what you were doing.”
Gates reportedly agreed, replying, “My success would have been so special to him as he was my greatest influence. So I decided to write and record ‘Everything I Own’ about him. If you listen to the words, ‘You sheltered me from harm, kept me warm, gave my life to me, set me free,’ it says it all.”
Feel the tugging in your chest yet?
When Gates’ father died in 1963, the musician was just beginning to see success. In an interview with The Guardian, he shared a bit more about writing the song as an homage to the “kind and gentle man” who was “revered by everyone.”
“He always had time for me and taught me to read and write music, play various instruments, and introduced me to classical music, my foundation,” Gates shared. “One year I sent my mom an orchid for her birthday, which I could scarcely afford. She was so touched – my dad wrote to tell me I could have had ‘anything she owned’ in return.”
He added, “As with all my songs, the music led and the words tried to keep up, but they came pretty quickly. I wrote the lyrics — ‘I would give everything I own just to have you back again’ — so that they could be interpreted as a love song, but when I played it for my wife, she knew right away that it was about my father. She cried.”
Ambiguity is one of the track’s best assets, as it casts a wider net with which to resonate. Another is the chorus’ melodic harpsichord, contributed by Larry Knechtel. Needless to say, the song was an instant smash, peaking at No. 5 on the Hot 100 and enjoying 13 weeks bobbing on the chart. The track also helped propel the album, still widely considered one of the greatest soft-rock albums of all time, to No. 3 on the Billboard 200.
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Now retired from the stage, Gates is 85 and living with his wife, Jo Rita, on their property in Mount Vernon, Washington. He is the sole surviving member of Bread’s original lineup, following the deaths of Jimmy Griffin and Mike Botts in 2005, and Larry Knechtel in 2009. And with Father’s Day on the horizon, the song’s quiet ache hits a little differently.
We’re not crying, you’re crying.
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