Saturday Morning Soundtrack -- "If Not For You" by George Harrison

We've got another guest entry in our popular Saturday Morning Soundtrack series this week with writer and music fan Dominique Bruno sharing her thoughts on a song that's become something of a family tradition.

---

---

"If Not For You" by George Harrison (1970)

I was raised on “Classic Rock” (before that meant 90’s-Grunge the way that it does now). My mother says that the year she was born (1955) is also the year that Rock and Roll was born.  Maybe the jury is out on that, but she is a fervent believer.  She loves Dylan, Clapton, and The Police—all of them. As a child, my brother and I would do morning yoga routines in the basement with my mom to the tunes of The Concert for Bangladesh or Bob Dylan’s 30th Anniversary, instead of Enya, Yanni, or ocean sounds. In the binary of “Beatles vs. Stones,” my mother is a Beatles girl. More specifically, she was a “George Girl,” because apparently you had to pick one? I don’t know—I wasn’t there. 

Anyway, All Things Must Pass was the album that my mother got as a graduation present from high school, and so she gave me the CDs (collector’s edition!) in 2004 when I graduated high school, as well.  That year, I called her to tell her that I was listening to the album every single day and she laughed because that is what she used to do, too. The Beatles had broken up, and Harrison was on his own for this album. So according to my mother, All Things Must Pass is his “goodbye” to his band. The title song “All Things Must Pass” is still my mother’s favorite song on the album, but this is mine. “If Not For You” is a very pure and simple love song, apparently written, or co-written by Harrison’s good friend Bob Dylan, as many great songs are. When my friends Sarah and Charlie got married in 2010, right before I moved to West Virginia, they walked down the aisle to Toto’s “Africa,” but their first dance was to “If Not For You.”  (You can guess what kind of amazing and wonderful people Sarah and Charlie are from this evidence alone.) That night, I danced with my best friends for the last time before I left. This year, I am traveling up to Boston for my best friend’s wedding, and last week, I sat down (with the same group of friends) at her bridal shower to talk about the tunes we were going to need for the wedding, since the bride’s sisters are assembling a playlist. This song got my vote.  I guess I just have a lot of feelings.

---

Love the song? Hate it? Have thoughts to share? Please, feel free to leave a message in the comments below. And, if you would like to write a Guest Entry for the "Saturday Morning Soundtrack" series where you creatively respond to one of your favorite rock songs, don't hesitate to contact me with queries.