"If We Only Have Love"

Song No. 3

Lyrics by Mort Shuman and Eric Blau

Music by Jacques Brel

A 1968 off-Broadway revue in New York called Jacques Brel Is Alive and Well and Living in Paris brought the songwriting genius of that Belgian to a wide public in this country for the first time. Since the mid-1950's, however, when he wrote "If We Only Have Love", his super-Gallic sentiment and subtlety had won discerning friends. Brel (who died in 1978) composed both music and words and sang his songs in a muted, intimate fashion that enhanced their romantic quality. Something of that same style infused two best selling recordings of this song--those of Dionne Warwick and Johnny Mathis --with English lyrics by Mort Shuman and Eric Blau.

Lyrics If we only have love, Then tomorrow will dawn And the days of our years will rise on that morn. If we only have love To embrace without fears We will kiss with our eyes We will sleep without tears. If we only have love, With our arms opened wide Then the young and the old Will stand at our side If we only have love, Love that's falling like rain Then the parched desert earth Will grow green again If we only have love For the hymn that we shout For the song that we sing Then we'll have a way out Then with nothing at all But the little we are We'll have conquered all time All space The sun...and the stars

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