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 the close listener: File Under: Great Song by Uncool Band In this week's column our intrepid listener takes a second spin at "Everything I Own," by Bread. Late in Bread's career, "Everything I Own" was released in 1972. To be found on the "Baby I'm-A Want You" (huh?) album, their fourth, it marks the departure of Robb Royer, and the addition of West Coast session man Larry Knechtel on bass and keyboards. Knowing this is of little significance, as Bread was a sound, not an outfit led by memorable personalities. Sensing the cultural move beyond acid, Bread had set about establishing themselves as kings of "the great new soft trend" over the course of the previous two years with hits such as "Make It With You," and "If." Bread contained a songwriting team in James Griffin and Robb Royer. Add to this, crack song-maker David Gates, and you have, well, let's just say, generation of material was not among Bread's troubles. And in fact, it is difficult to uncover a dark side to Bread. Drugs don't seem to have played a major role. Neither do internecine battling and smoldering resentments. No punch-ups, no affairs. Indeed, Bread seemed to exude no personality at all. Ditto for posturing and arrogance, direction, sexuality. There was some dissention, though, within the group, with James Griffin trying for a rockier sound, while lead singer David Gates seemed to have an easier time accepting who he was. Listening to them now, one has to side with Gates, as the "rock numbers" tend to be songs that don't actually rock at all and make you uncomfortable at the straight-laced effort to get a groove. Bread was so soft they didn't even have a drummer for their first album. "Everything I Own," which made it all the way to #5 in January of 1972, begins in trebly acoustic plangent-sounding chords, with a repeating root note played by what sounds like a second guitar imitating a bass, which adds to the atmosphere of top-end lightness, until Gates' high vibratoey vocal touches down. It's not feminine-sounding so much as tentative. A change within the actual verse, just as it approaches the chorus, provides evidence of Gates' nuanced, advanced song-styling, and here is where he drops an octave into a more stable range. By the chorus, the drums kick in, and the band doesn't quite rock, but bounces, with that light West-coast feel brought about somewhat by Gates' California-by-way-of Tulsa vocal inflections. The particular keyboard and percussion combinations found in the chorus give the impression that you've heard a harpsichord. The orchestra comes in at verse two -- sloping and swelling violins. At the 2nd chorus, the descending bass notes paired with the ascending strings spread the sound in opposing directions, with the result of a mid-line feel, that familiar, conservative, hugged-in soft-rock sound. The bridge is a lovely moment, doing exactly what a bridge used to know how to do, bridge the gap between choruses by way of real departure, actual musical change, without straying so far from the melody as to sound like it's part of another song. Here Gates makes a lyrical switch too, addressing the listener in a proviso against regret, whereas he has spent the earlier minutes of the song expressing his loss. The guitar is plucked-sounding, like a harp. "Everything I Own" manages to capture the feel of voices and sounds if not descending from the clouds then at least hovering above us -- which is quite an accomplishment, and an act of coincidence of form and content, given what we learned in the 70's, much to our moved surprise, the song to be about: lost romantic love? My ass!! It was about his dead dad!! Bread had, from 1970-1972, ten top fifteen hits, with one ("Baby I'm-A Want You") making it to number one. They had a sound and an approach that, because of musical hybridization and the tyranny of the ironic tone, it is probably impossible to manage now. Many probably feel this is progress. In Bread's day, there was some talk over what their name meant, some pointing to the group's middle-of-the-road sound as evidence of their blatant attempt to make money, though there can be no doubt in my mind that the name is perfectly expressive of their sound - soft, and in this case, white, very white.
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