If I Had You

Album: The Korgis (1979)
Charted: 13
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Songfacts®:

  • The guitar riffs in this song are inspired by White Album era Beatles, while the horns are based on based on Variation 18 of Rachmaninov's "Rhapsody On A Theme of Paganini" - itself based on Paganini's "Caprice No 24 in A minor." The lyrics deal with unrequited love, a theme that came to epitomize the majority of the band's songs on their first three albums.
  • Formed in 1978, the original members of The Korgis included singer and bassist James Warren (ex-Stackridge), singer and multi-instrumentalist Andy Davis (also ex-Stackridge), along with session musicians Phil Harrison (keyboards) and Stuart Gordon (guitars). Other members of this early version of The Korgis included Steve Lindsay (vocals) and Dave Lord (strings). Following the demise of Stackridge, school friends Warren and Davis departed from their former band's progressive rock style in favor of a more contemporary synth-rock sound. "If I Had You" did not chart in the United States but was the first of three UK hit singles for The Korgis between 1979 and 1982. Their second, "Everybody's Got To Learn Sometime," became a major international hit and ushered in the New Romantic genre, which continued to dominate UK charts until the mid-1980s. Internal disputes caused Andy Davis and other founder members to leave The Korgis in 1985, although the band continued to record with various lineup changes under James Warren's leadership until 1993. However, they were never able to repeat the success of their early 1980s heyday.
  • Tracey Ullman and Rod Stewart both covered this song. >>>
    Suggestion credit:
    Dave - Cardiff, Wales, for all above

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