If I Could Be with You
This song has been in my mind always, it seems, but more precisely since I, as a teenager, heard it with McKinney’s Cotton Pickers as sung by their saxophone player George Thomas. He had the misfortune to die in a car crash in 1930, just when his fame as a singer started to spread. But the song by James P. Johnson lives on.
If I could be with you one hour tonight
If I was free to do the things I might
I want you to know I wouldn't go
Until I told you honey that I love you so.
If I could be with you I'd love you strong,
If I could be with you I'd love you long
I'm telling you true, You’d be anything but blue
If I could be with you, for just one hour
If I could be with you