I Won't Last A Day Without You

Album: A Song For You (1972)
Charted: 32 11
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  • Day after day, I must face a world of strangers
    Where I don't belong, I'm not that strong
    It's nice to know that there's someone I can turn to
    Who will always care, you're always there

    When there's no gettin' over that rainbow
    When my smallest of dreams won't come true
    I can take all the madness the world has to give
    But I won't last a day without you

    So many times when the city seems to be
    Without a friendly face, a lonely place
    It's nice to know that you'll be there if I need you
    And you'll always smile, it's all worthwhile

    When there's no gettin' over that rainbow
    When my smallest of dreams won't come true
    I can take all the madness the world has to give
    But I won't last a day without you

    Touch me and I end up singing
    Trouble seems to up and disappear
    You touch me with the love you're bringing
    I can't really lose when you're near
    When you're near, my love

    If all my friends have forgotten half their promises they're not unkind
    Just hard to find
    One look at you and I know
    That I could learn to live without the rest
    I've found the best

    When there's no gettin' over that rainbow
    When my smallest of dreams won't come true
    I can take all the madness the world has to give
    But I won't last a day without you

    When there's no gettin' over that rainbow
    When my smallest of dreams won't come true
    I can take all the madness the world has to give
    But I won't last a day without you Writer/s: Paul H Williams, Roger S Nichols
    Publisher: Universal Music Publishing Group
    Lyrics licensed and provided by LyricFind

Comments: 2

  • Larry Brown-lifelong Carpenters Fan from Houston, Tx, Usa.This is a gorgeous song. Along with all the music from The Carpenters, this is one of my favorites. Richard does a masterful job on the arrangement, just like he does on all The Carpenters recordings. Karen's voice, singing, delivery, and performance is sublime and moving and profound and so meaningful, just like it is on all Carpenters music. The "Carpenters Sound" segments at the start and end of the track are just confabulous...earth has never heard such a glorious sound before nor since. Osmonds and The Lettermen may be in the running, but like in a lot of things, there's a large empty space between #1 and whoever are the people vying for #2. I just listened for the first time to the piano solo version of this song on the recently released "Richard Carpenter's Piano Songbook," and it seems that Richard has been able to recover his piano mojo and that version is just as sublime as his performances back in the 1970s, giving a new instrumental angle on this old classic track, with a few jazzy surprises thrown in for good measure. I can respect Paul Williams on many levels: He's a great lyricist, he's a brilliant self-promoter, he's got great hair, I like his on-screen presence, he got a respectable number of songs in the top 40 (or much higher), he did good work with The Muppets, later he even learned to write his own melodies (and hit #1 on one or a few of those self-penned tunes), starred in several historic movies (Planet of the Apes, Smokey and the Bandit, and The Muppet Movie), and he's a guy that was lost in self-destructive alcoholism but somehow found the strength to overcome that, get straight, and become an outspoken champion of sobriety. All the same, his combination of luck and successful self-promotion gets him more credit than he deserves because we all think of Paul as the guy that wrote all those great songs, but it was actually Roger Nichols that wrote that music, e.g. in I won't last a day without you, and Paul is just the lyrics. Who even knows what Roger Nichols looks like, and he's far from a household name, which Paul is.
  • Barry from Sauquoit, NyOn September 2, 1972, Andy and David Williams performed their covered version of "I Won't Last A Day Without You" on the Dick Clark ABC-TV Saturday-afternoon program 'American Bandstand'...
    Their version didn't make Billboard's Top 100 chart, it was track three of side two on their 'Meet Andy and David Williams' album...
    Two years later on June 16th, 1974 their only Top 100 record, "What's Your Name", entered the chart at #98, the following week it moved up to #92, then it dropped down to #96, and for it's fourth and final week on the chart it rose again to it's peak position of #92...
    Known simply the Williams Brothers, their "Can't Cry Hard Enough" peaked at #42 on March 29, 1992...
    At the time of their appearance on 'Bandstand' on September 2nd, 1972 the twin nephews of singer Andy Williams were 13 years-old.
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