Without going through the painstaking detail of the various circumstances of my life during the time my song “All My Love” (which you can listen to directly below) was written, let me instead just give you the proper context or explanation necessary to properly know or “feel” the intention of the song as I wrote it.
“All My Love” — much like my favorite folk song, “Dink’s Song” — is about longing for a lover who will never return. I also took inspiration from the feel of Bobby Womack’s “More Than I Can Stand”.
Because, in many ways, those songs and mine are all a plea.
“All My Love” is that plea that we make when — even with all of our strength, intelligence, wisdom and cunning — we can’t bring someone we love with our entire being back into our life. We can’t change circumstances to move things back into place so that it would work again.
And that is this very specific and painful type of longing. Thus, I named the EP originally containing the song “Longing”.
“All My Love” is the only way I could find where you can — in a socially acceptable way — scream out in public what boils down to, “I’m still here. I love you. Come home,” just hoping that the person you love most will somehow hear it and find you again.
That’s the place I wrote the song from.
Of course, I now know years later how the story of “All My Love” really ends, and where all of those circumstances led.
But I still play it. And I still love it more than maybe any of my other songs.
Because I have always appreciated the element beneath all of the lyrics that made it unique to me out of all of my songs: hope.
Lyrics
Well, in 30 years,
I’ll probably still be here
Singing to empty barrooms
Hoping you’re near enough to hear me
Longing to feel
Your shadow lurking in the corner
Giving me the limelight
You gave me when we were younger
Cause baby,
Just want to give you all my love
All my love
Don’t you want it at all?
Oh honey,
Just dying to give you all my love
All my love
Don’t you want it at all?
And I don’t care at all
About fame and fortune
All they’ve done is left me
Left me, oh so broken
So won’t you come knockin’
Come knockin’ again
I’ll meet you where you’re at
If you’ll tell me where I’ve been
Cause baby,
Just want to give you all my love
All my love
Don’t you want it at all?
Oh honey,
Just dying to give you all my love
All my love
Don’t you want it at all?
Don’t you want it?
Tell me, honestly,
Don’t you want it?
Come on, tell me
You want it
Don’t you want me at all?
Don’t you want it
Don’t, don’t you want it
Come on
Tell me that you want it
Don’t you want me at all?
Oh, don’t you want it
Don’t you
Don’t you want it
Tell me you want it
Don’t you want me
At all?
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