If

If, by Bread, in my opinion is the greatest love song ever written. Ever.

This simple, no chorus, poetry perces my heart deeper with every time I hear it and I re-listen and sing along several times a week!

I feel like I shouldn't have ever liked this song to begin with. It's a guitar-playing solo sung by a long-haired, hippy-ish stereotype (even caricature of a 70's arts major) who spends his afternoons swooning women under the campus oak trees with his sensitive writings, all with a high voice, using unattractive falsetto notes at time. The combination is nauseating and seems so insincere BUT darn it, I fell for it. I AM that girl sitting under that oak tree (in my bell bottoms and crop top sweater) listening, unblinking, who's become entranced with every word and every note of this man's sensitive and deeply romantic sonnet. I don't take this song as insincere, corny or fake. I don't take this song as a man trying to say whatever sludge comes into his head in attempt to score with chick after chick. I take this song as the epitomy of how a man can love a woman and its exemplar ability to vocalize and describe that love. I find this description of love outrageously perfect in its lyrics, rendition and tone, and overall execution and I am forever enraptured by it.

I cannot think of more lovely and true words I rather hear from my love.
I cannot think of better pros I could ever express to my love.

I am aware I have adopted If's sediments, hopes and expectations. Maybe they aren't realistic or achievable? No, I can't believe its fluff. I know that's why women like me find themselves sitting motionless under that oak tree listening and craving more, because we want these words to not just be words and polite intentions, we want them magnified and fulfilled, making them real and achievable for all. We so badly want to be the complete desire of ONE man's hopes, dreams and eternity. I have faith in this song's potential, these feelings are possible.    

If a picture paints a thousand words,
Then why can't I paint you?
The words will never show the you I've come to know.
If a face could launch a thousand ships,
Then where am I to go? 
There's no one home but you,
You're all that's left me too.
And when my love for life is running dry,
You come and pour yourself on me.

If a man could be two places at one time,
I'd be with you.
Tomorrow and today, beside you all the way.
If the world should stop revolving spinning slowly down to die,
I'd spend the end with you.
And when the world was through,
Then one by one the stars would all go out,
Then you and I would simply fly away.