Today’s song is ‘Without You’. This song was written by Pete Ham and Tom Evans of Welsh rock group ‘Badfinger’, and first released on their 1970 album ‘No Dice’. This power ballad has been recorded by over 180 artists, and versions released as singles by Harry Nilsson (1971) and Mariah Carey (1994) became international best-sellers. Paul McCartney once described the balladnas "the killer song of all time".
In 1972, writers Ham and Evans received the British Academy's ‘Ivor Novello Award’ for ‘Best Song Musically and Lyrically’. Evans' relationship with his future wife Marianne influenced his lyrics after she left him, and he found it hard to live without her. Sadly, the two writers of the song, Ham and Evans, later committed suicide due to legal and financial issues. In Evans' case, it was a dispute over song-writing royalties for ‘Without You’ that precipitated his action. Song-riting royalties had become the subject of constant legal wrangling for Evans, and in 1983, following an acrimonious argument with his bandmate Joey Molland over the royalties for the song, Evans hanged himself.
The song was released as a single in October 1971, and it stayed at Number 1 on the U.S. pop chart for four weeks in 1972. Billboard ranked it as the Number 4 song for 1972.
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There are so many people in this world where relationships ended through break up, circumstances beyond one’s control or death has left a hole in them that can never again be filled, has left an emotional void that can never again be bridged. The person has given their heart, mind, body and soul in the love of another, and now find themselves alone in their grief that cannot seem to be tempered by any other association, thought or activity.
I have known spurned and broken-hearted lovers turn to drink, debauchery, debasement of others and damage of self through alcohol, drug abuse and other means of self-administered destruction. I have known bereaved people who have lost a loved one during their height of happiness together through illness and death prefer to live in the land of bitterness, sadness, anger, regret, depression and loneliness for many years because something inside themselves lead them to believe that they have had their one chance at happiness in this life and see loving another as being no less than an act of betrayal to one’s last love.
People foolishly allow previous mistakes they have made with people to deter them from ever taking future risks where fragile feelings are concerned. Even happily married people who find themselves bereaved in later life can still find new love in another. It may not be the same type of love previously experienced yet can be every bit as meaningful and satisfactory in its difference.
While I have made my own mistakes in both matters of love and life, I have never been afraid to either love or to live. I think that the secret is to always make oneself emotionally available and emotionally and honestly expressive. It is impossible for another to discern and therefore discover what is in another’s heart that remains closed to all manner of approach.
I also believe that until one is ‘at peace with oneself’, one will find it extremely difficult; nay, nigh impossible to be at peace with another or be able to healthily withstand and come to emotional terms with the death, distance or absence of another.
Love and peace Bill xxx
In 1972, writers Ham and Evans received the British Academy's ‘Ivor Novello Award’ for ‘Best Song Musically and Lyrically’. Evans' relationship with his future wife Marianne influenced his lyrics after she left him, and he found it hard to live without her. Sadly, the two writers of the song, Ham and Evans, later committed suicide due to legal and financial issues. In Evans' case, it was a dispute over song-writing royalties for ‘Without You’ that precipitated his action. Song-riting royalties had become the subject of constant legal wrangling for Evans, and in 1983, following an acrimonious argument with his bandmate Joey Molland over the royalties for the song, Evans hanged himself.
The song was released as a single in October 1971, and it stayed at Number 1 on the U.S. pop chart for four weeks in 1972. Billboard ranked it as the Number 4 song for 1972.
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There are so many people in this world where relationships ended through break up, circumstances beyond one’s control or death has left a hole in them that can never again be filled, has left an emotional void that can never again be bridged. The person has given their heart, mind, body and soul in the love of another, and now find themselves alone in their grief that cannot seem to be tempered by any other association, thought or activity.
I have known spurned and broken-hearted lovers turn to drink, debauchery, debasement of others and damage of self through alcohol, drug abuse and other means of self-administered destruction. I have known bereaved people who have lost a loved one during their height of happiness together through illness and death prefer to live in the land of bitterness, sadness, anger, regret, depression and loneliness for many years because something inside themselves lead them to believe that they have had their one chance at happiness in this life and see loving another as being no less than an act of betrayal to one’s last love.
People foolishly allow previous mistakes they have made with people to deter them from ever taking future risks where fragile feelings are concerned. Even happily married people who find themselves bereaved in later life can still find new love in another. It may not be the same type of love previously experienced yet can be every bit as meaningful and satisfactory in its difference.
While I have made my own mistakes in both matters of love and life, I have never been afraid to either love or to live. I think that the secret is to always make oneself emotionally available and emotionally and honestly expressive. It is impossible for another to discern and therefore discover what is in another’s heart that remains closed to all manner of approach.
I also believe that until one is ‘at peace with oneself’, one will find it extremely difficult; nay, nigh impossible to be at peace with another or be able to healthily withstand and come to emotional terms with the death, distance or absence of another.
Love and peace Bill xxx
