Bread – Down On My Knees

Bread was known as a light pop band in the 1970s. When I heard this I realized they stuck their toe in the power pop water. It sounded familiar when I heard it a few years ago. I then remembered…it was on their 1973 greatest hits album that my sister had.

Band members David Gates and James Griffin wrote this song at the Royal Lancaster Hotel during their first trip to London. Griffin wrote a lot of songs for Bread but the record company always seemed to pick David Gates songs for singles. This song was the B-Side to the song Diary.

The song was off their Baby I’m-A Want You album released in 1972. It was their fourth LP, which proved to be the highest-charting studio album of the band’s career and provided them with four top-40 hits. The hits were “Mother Freedom” – #37 “Baby I’m-a Want You” – #3 “Everything I Own” – #5 “Diary” – #15. That was quite impressive in the 70s when record companies usually didn’t release a lot of singles from an album.  In the 1980s it became commonplace to squeeze as many singles as possible. Bread though…was more of a singles band to begin with.

It was their first album without founding member Robb Royer… Although his departure was due to increasing tensions between him and Gates, Royer continued to write songs with Jimmy Griffin, who remained in the band, hence Royer’s name still turning up in the credits as the co-composer of Dream Lady and Games of Magic. They replaced Royer with studio keyboardist  Larry Knechtel who was a member of the Wrecking Crew.

James Griffin: “The lyric doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to me – I think we were each writing about different things. But the song got a lot of airplay, and people seemed to like it.”

Down On My Knees

I’ve told you before
Don’t you hear what I say?
I won’t take it no more
no more making me stay

Down on my knees
You know I’m down on my knees, yeah
Yes I’ve been down on my knees, but I’m through begging please
I wont get back on my knees, yeah

Nobody knows what your putting me through
Nobody knows if it’s worth it for you
Nobody sees you got me down on my knees, yeah
Well I’ve been down on my knees, well I’m through begging please
don’t put my back on my knees, yeah

You know that I always loved you
Never placed myself above you
Don’t let me go with my ways that I could
Don’t tell me no with my ways that you would

Down on my knees
You’ve brought me down on my knees, yeah
Well I’ve been down on my knees, but I’m through begging please
don’t put me back on my knees, yeah

You know how I always loved you
There’s no time that I have tried to place myself above you

Down on my knees
You know that I’m down on my knees, yeah
Well I’ve been down on my knees, but I’m through beggin’ please
don’t put me back on my knees, yeah
Ya I’ve been down on, but I’m through begging please
don’t put me back on my knees

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Author: Badfinger (Max)

Power Pop fan, Baseball, Beatles, Alternative music, old movies, and tv show fan. Also anything to do with pop culture in the 60s and 70s... I'm also a songwriter, bass and guitar player. Not the slightest bit interested in politics at all.

41 thoughts on “Bread – Down On My Knees”

  4. I just remember when we were kids Max that my Mother was really a fan of Bread & she didn’t have any other non-black groups or acts that she bought albums from besides her jazz records from her college days in the early 60’s. David Gates had a distinctive voice.

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      3. Dig it! I really loved Steely Dan, The Doobie Brothers, Toto & I really liked Ambrosia but on that XM channel it sounds more like soft rock & that wasn’t soft rock back then. Soft rock was ‘Easy Listening’ music that wasn’t usually ‘Pop’ music. But, if it gets that genre’ played & a whole new generation sort of appreciates it then it’s better than not having the ability to hear that great music again. The ‘New Wave’ revolution happened when I was leaving high school because the country was getting tired of that L.A. ‘Pop’ sound & ‘Synth Pop’ & ‘New Wave’ & the ‘Minneapolis Sound’ was raw & was dance music with a lot Moog’s & synthesizers & cool hairdo’s & stuff. Perfect storm.

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      4. Yea and America and Seals and Croft…they are really good pop.
        ‘Minneapolis Sound…oh yes…The Replacements came out of that which I love….but yea this music was displaced.

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      5. Absolutely, like what happened to Christopher Cross. One day he was the toast of the Pop music world & winning Oscar’s & literally within a half of a year he couldn’t get on the charts. 1983 was the real end to that music dubbed ‘Yacht Rock’ because we the kids of that generation were tired of it & we jumped all over the new forms that flooded the airwaves by late ’82. That music was displaced great characterization Max. That was similar to what happened on the Pop charts in January of 1964 right after the Beatles & all of the other groups from England dominated the charts & no more Fabian & Dion, Connie Francis & all of those acts that dominated the charts in the early 60’s.

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      9. I’ve been a huge fan of New Wave/Alternative since ’83 & yes, ‘Rock’ has a serious presence there because of the ‘Punk’ roots from the late 70’s. Blonde, Talking Heads & The Pretenders all came out of that genre’ & softened their music to get hits & stayed Pop. Chrissie Hynde carried that torch while having Pop hits the best (in my opinion) at the beginning of that time.

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      10. Oh the heartland rockers like Springsteen, Petty and Mellencamp helped as well…and Prince because yes Prince could do pop…he also could rock.

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  6. I didn’t know this song but I quite like it, would not have guessed it was Bread, probably more than anything because it lacks the distinctive David Gates vocals. Nice guitar sound though. I can see why Elektra ran them the way they did – the Gates soft rock songs were good, first and foremost, and why change something that’s working? But it didn’t give the whole idea of what the group was and would be sure to cause internal conflicts with them

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    1. Yes…it made them end sooner because of that…who knows? In the time of the Raspberries and Badfinger this would have been listened to anyway back then.

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  10. I’ll admit it, I’m a die-hard Bread head. Their greatest hits was one of the first few albums I bought. It got played a lot. The thing that fascinates me is David Gates and Leon Russell working together in Tulsa pre-fame. That should lend a little credibility for people who wrote them off. I doubt Leon would work with anyone who couldn’t cut it musically, and David Gates could write great melodies.

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  11. They could rock really well. It’s a shame Elektra never issued any of their rockers as singles, though I imagine some might have been issued as B sides. This is a good one, Sounds like there’s a 12-string in there….

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  12. That song was new to me. I think it’s fairly decent power pop. I only know Bread from the radio and songs like “Make It With You”, “Baby I’m-a Want You” and “Everything I Own”. In my young teens, I was into “softies”. Some of the music I once loved like Air Supply now tends to make me gasp for air. When it comes to Bread, I can still listen to the aforementioned songs and finding them reasonably enjoyable.

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