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Olivia Newton-John - If Not For You

Olivia Newton-John - If Not For You Youtube Music Videos and Lyrics

Album: If Not For You
Released: 1971

If Not For You Lyrics

If Not For You, babe I couldn't even find the door
I couldn't even see the floor
I'd be sad and blue, if not for you

If not for you, babe, the night would see me wide awake
The day would surely have to break
It would not be new, if not for you

If not for you, my sky would fall, rain would gather too
Without your love I'd be nowhere at all, I'd be lost, if not for you

If not for you, the winter would hold no spring
Couldn't hear a robin sing
I just wouldn't have a clue, if not for you

If not for you
My sky would fall
Rain would gather too
Without your love I’d be nowhere at all
I’d be lost if not for you

If not for you
The winter would hold no spring
You couldn’t hear the robin sing
I just wouldn’t have a clue
If not for you
If not for you

Writer/s: BOB DYLAN
Publisher: BOB DYLAN MUSIC CO
Lyrics licensed and provided by LyricFind

If Not For You Song Chart

Bob Dylan wrote this song and recorded it in 1970 on his New Morning album. Ron Cornelius is a producer, songwriter and publisher who has played on albums by Dylan, Leonard Cohen, Loudon Wainwright III and many others. He told us about the Nashville sessions that produced the album:
"I always wanted to cut an album with him not as an ongoing thing, just saddle up with 5 or 6 guys, go for what you know right on the spot, and it was a series of sessions known as The New Morning Sessions that my wish came true. Dylan played his own acoustic guitar and sang, we had Charlie Daniels on bass and Al Kooper on keys and Russ Konkel on drums and me playing lead guitar. It was just a handful of guys going for what we know. He did something in those sessions that in all my work I've never seen anybody do - he would say 'OK, here's the song that we're going to do,' and he would go ahead and sing it down for us. While he's singing it down for you, you need to chart the song so at least you know the lay of the land. He'd say 'Has everybody got it, need me to play it again?,' then he'd say 'Let's cut it once and see what happens.' Well, as soon as the red lights come on to record, he'd take off playing the song in a completely different tempo than he had just played it. Everybody now is really off base, and you have to just go for what you know. If you'd get 3/4 of the way though it and it fell apart and we had to stop and do it again, we'd go back and red light the song, this time - completely different tempo. I mean way off, drastic changes. Not just fast or slow, he might flip into a Reggae type feel or something. If anybody fell off bad enough to stop that one, he'd say 'let's try it one more time.' The third time he'd take off in a completely different area. I know he was doing that to keep you off base, so that you had to be able to accommodate what was in front of you right now for the first time. If anybody fell off that time bad enough to stop the song, he'd say 'Next Song.' We cut for 21 days doing that and New Morning came out of those sessions. For a session player that was very weird because you're used to somebody singing their song, and you grasp what they're doing and hopefully everybody in the room does, and you get a magical take of it, and if you don't you try it again until everybody feels 'there it is.' Then you can move on to the next song.

This was Olivia Newton-John's first major hit on an international scale, and put her on the map in the all-important United States market for the first time, where the song went to #1 on the Adult Contemporary charts. Newton-John herself disliked the song and resisted recording it, doing so only grudgingly at the urging of her managers and fiancé. (thanks, Mike - Santa Barbara, CA)

Newton-John had her dog in the recording booth with her and at one point during the session he got up and knocked over a music stand. The sound can still be heard in the recording today, just after the instrumental bridge. (thanks, James - Minneapolis, MN)

George Harrison recorded this in 1970 for All Things Must Pass, his first solo album after The Beatles broke up. It was a triple album made up mostly of songs Harrison wrote as a member of The Beatles but were not recorded by the group. The first track on the album was "I'd Have You Anytime," which Harrison wrote with Dylan in 1968. This was the only song on All Things Must Pass that Harrison didn't write.

Olivia Newton John's songwriter John Farrar suggested that she cover this Bob Dylan song for her first UK release. Olivia said in 1000 UK #1 Hits by Jon Kutner and Spencer Leigh, "I wasn't keen on that song at all, but I'm so glad John chose it because it's not one that I would have picked. I didn't think I sang it well, so when it was a hit you know I had to really say it was my management, and Bruce Welch and John Farrar who produced it, that were really the ones that thought that was a good record for me cause in those days I loved singing those big dramatic ballads, you know, talk about being sentimental." (thanks, Edward Pearce - Ashford, Kent, England)