"If I Can't Have You" What the Lyrics Mean to Me

Yvonne Elliman

 When Yvonne Elliman was singing "If I Can't Have You" in the 70's, looking into my mother's eyes as a child, I didn't think about how I would some day loose her. In 2001, my mother was to suppose to have been dying from breast cancer. I thought about the part that Yvonne sung: Am I strong enough to see it through? I'll go crazy is what I will do. If I can't have you, I don't want nobody...." And I don't want nobody. I thought I would go crazy when my mother died, but I didn't. So far I haven't. I guess I was, and still is thanks to God, strong enough to see it through. When Yvonne sings, "I don't know why I'm surviving every lonely day", I know why. It is God that makes me survive. Though my life has not ended, it seems a part of me is dead. However, I keep on moving on. I keep on living and striving without my mother.  

Yvonne Elliman_If I Can't Have You

Google Image

Posted by acuario60

I was crazy about this song growing up. I remember everybody singing it. My mother who was strictly religious who hardly sung the blues, my mother's younger sister, my father, and me. The song has music that makes you recoginize it right away. The music is powerful and real. I love the violins and drums. It's not like the fake music from rythm machines. It's not just a beat. Without the violins, this song is dead. The violins added something unique to the song. It raises the dead. In other words, it is a song that wakes you up and makes you want to dance.



Lyrics | Yvonne Elliman - If I Can’t Have You lyrics