Wednesday, December 29, 2010

I Wish I'D Written That... or "Thirty Years Ago Today"



Thirty years ago today, singer/songwriter Tim Hardin died of a heroin overdose. He had turned thirty-nine just six days earlier.

Outside of his own career as a performer, Hardin wrote the Top 40 hits "If I Were a Carpenter" and "Reason to Believe."

To me, Hardin is most notable for "Reason to Believe," a song I originally heard as performed by Rod Stewart. I own Hardin's version, of course, but I vastly prefer Rod Stewart's... so I've embedded Stewart's cover version below. Give it a listen, won't you?


That song contains what I, for my own reasons, consider to be the most effective line ever written: "Someone like you makes it hard to live without somebody else." And when I say "most effective line," I do not mean to suggest that "Reason to Believe" is the greatest song ever written, or even one of my own absolute favorite songs.

It's the line itself, and virtually every varying interpretation I've given it personally over the last forty years or so as I've applied it to certain women I've known and usually loved. Out of all the songs, novels, stories, poems, et cetera which I've ever encountered that contained one or more "great" lines, that line is my favorite. Ever.

I certainly don't expect you to agree, necessarily, but frankly... I don't care. It's my favorite. That's all. Just sayin'.

And let's face it, fellow babies... This is my blog.

Thanks for your time.

4 comments:

  1. I've never heard this song before! Thanks for the introduction, Silver.

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  2. I live to serve, milady! Well... musically, anyway...

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  3. Great song and great line. I must confess that I never knew who wrote it though. Thanks for the background info on the song and on Tim Hardin. It's always nice to know where the credit goes in the music world. The song writers are often the "unsung" heros behind the stars.
    Have a rockin' new year!
    BTW...now I have the song stuck in my head...but that's a good thing ; )

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  4. I was wondering if my approach to this post was warding off comments, like maybe people were too polite to say "That's not the greatest line ever," but I only meant that it is to me. It's like if I were to write that "My mom was the best mother ever," I'm sure a lot of people would think "My mother was even better," but wouldn't want to comment to that effect in case I took it as an insult to my mother (which I wouldn't).

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