Music Friday: 'For Your Love,' The Yardbirds Will Bring Diamond Rings to Your Door

Welcome to Music Friday when we bring you classic songs with jewelry, gemstones or precious metals in the title or lyrics. Today’s featured track is “For Your Love” by the British-invasion band The Yardbirds. The 1965 hit, which features key “diamond” references, was the group’s biggest commercial success, but also triggered the departure of future superstar Eric Clapton.

The song is essentially a love treatise, with lead singer Keith Relf ticking off all the things he would give “for your love.” In addition to offering the moon, the sun and the stars, Relf starts off with a jewelry-related proposal…

Relf sings, “I’d give you everything and more and that’s for sure / I’d bring you diamond rings and things right to your door / To thrill you with delight / I’d give you diamonds bright/ There’ll be things that will excite / Make you dream of me at night.”

Even though the song rose to #6 on the US Billboard Top 100 chart and scored #1 spots in both the UK and Canada, “For Your Love” became a dealbreaker for the 20-year-old Clapton.

The lead guitarist left the band eight days after the song’s release because he believed it signaled that The Yardbirds were abandoning their blues roots and becoming too commercial. Music historians claim he was also disgruntled having to duplicate the song’s unusual harpsichord intro on his 12-string electric guitar when playing live.

On The Yardbirds official site, guitarist Chris Dreja said “For Your Love” was responsible for bringing the group international fame. He also said that the “weirdness” of the song’s time-signature change in the middle became a template for future hits.

“‘For Your Love’ was an interesting song,” Yardbirds drummer Jim McCarty told songfacts.com. “It had an interesting chord sequence, very moody, very powerful. And the fact that it stopped in the middle and went into a different time signature, we liked that, that was interesting. Quite different, really, from all the bluesy stuff that we’d been playing up till then. But somehow we liked it. It was original and different.”

Ironically, The Yardbirds’ signature song and biggest hit wasn’t originally intended for the group. Apparently, songwriter Graham Gouldman wrote it for his own group, the Mockingbirds, but their demo was rejected by Columbia Records. The song was also turned down by the producers of Herman’s Hermits and the Animals before landing with The Yardbirds.

Musician Dave Liebman, who was hired to write the introduction to “For Your Love,” revealed years later that the use of the harpsichord was a total accident. Upon arriving at the recording studio, he realized that the organ he intended to use was nowhere in site. He had to settle for a harpsichord and history was made — the first rock song featuring a harpsichord.

The Yardbirds were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1992 and are included in Rolling Stone magazine’s list of the “100 Greatest Artists of All Time.”

Please check out the video at the end of this post. It’s a rare 1965 clip of The Yardbirds performing “For Your Love” on Shindig!, a U.S. musical variety show. The lyrics are below if you’d like to sing along...

“For Your Love”
Written by Graham Gouldman. Performed by The Yardbirds.

For your love.
For your love.
For your love.
I’d give you everything and more, and that’s for sure.
For your love.
I’d give you diamond rings and things right to your door.
For your love.

To thrill you with delight,
I’ll give you diamonds bright.
There’ll be things that will excite,
Make me dream of you at night.

For your love.
For your love.
For your love.

For your love, for your love,
Well, I would give the stars above.
For your love, for your love,
Well, I would give you all I could.

For your love.
For your love.
For your love.
I’d give the moon if it were mine to give.
For your love.
I’d give the sun and stars ‘fore I live.
For your love.

To thrill you with delight,
I’ll give you diamonds bright.
There’ll be things that will excite,
To make you dream of me at night.

For your love.
For your love.
For your love.
For your love.

Credit: Photo by Epic, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

Solar Eclipse: Sun, Moon Will Align to Create 'Diamond Ring Effect' on April 8

If you're lucky enough to live along the narrow path that runs from Eagle Pass, TX, to the eastern tip of Maine, April 8th will bring you a fantastical total solar eclipse, complete with a bonus celestial display that looks remarkably like a diamond ring.

The “Diamond Ring Effect,” which was first explained by Francis Baily in 1836, occurs when the moon completely masks out the sun during a total solar eclipse. Due to the rugged lunar landscape, the black outline of the moon is not smooth. Tiny beads of sunlight can still shine through in some places and not in others as the moon slowly grazes past the sun.

These are called Baily’s Beads. When only one dazzling “bead” remains, momentarily, the view of the eclipse resembles a diamond ring. The ring’s glow is produced by the sun’s corona remaining dimly visible around the lunar silhouette.

The Diamond Ring Effect will actually happen twice on April 8. The first time will occur in the moment just before the total eclipse, and the second will occur just after the total eclipse. The solar eclipse will last about 4.5 minutes in most locations along the path, and effectively turn day into night. The grey path shown on NASA's map is about 115 miles wide and represents the viewing area where the Moon will completely block out the Sun in the sky.

Skygazers southwest of San Antonio will experience the solar eclipse at approximately 1:30pm Central time, while those in the easternmost reaches of Maine will close out the US light show just after 3:30pm Eastern.

Ironically, one of the best places to view the “Diamond Ring Effect” on April 8 will be at Crater of Diamonds State Park in Murfreesboro, AR, the only diamond site in the world that’s open to the general public.

The park will experience 3 minutes and 48 seconds of the total eclipse, which will start at 1:47pm and last through 1:51pm. Visitors to the park on April 8 will see the start of a partial eclipse at 12:30pm and the end of the partial eclipse at 3:08 pm.

Reservations at the park are booking up fast, so those planning a trip to the park should order tickets online at this site…

While snacks and drinks are available in the Visitor Center while supplies last, guests are encouraged to bring a picnic lunch and plenty of water for every person in their group. Visitors are also encouraged to bring their own buckets, shovels, wagons, and sifting screens, as rental equipment is likely to sell out.

NASA warned that skywatchers should NEVER look at a partial solar eclipse without proper eye protection. Looking directly at the sun, even when it is partially covered by the moon, can cause serious eye damage or blindness. Only during totality, when the sun’s disk is completely covered by the moon, is it safe to view the eclipse with the naked eye, says NASA.

During the solar eclipse, the moon’s shadow will pass over half of the US. The path of the umbra, where the eclipse is total, will stretch on a fairly straight path from the Tex-Mex border to the Maine-New Brunswick border. Cities in a great position to view a total eclipse and the "Diamond Ring Effect" include Little Rock, Indianapolis, Cleveland, Buffalo and Burlington, VT.

Credits: Diamond ring solar eclipse photo by Lutfar Rahman Nirjhar, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons. Solar eclipse map by Michala Garrision and the Scientific Visualization Studio (SVS), in collaboration with the NASA Heliophysics Activation Team (NASA HEAT), part of NASA's Science Activation portfolio. Eclipse calculations by Ernie Wright, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center. Crater of Diamonds image courtesy of Arkansas State Parks.

Oxford Mathematician Reveals Formula for a Perfect Marriage Proposal

The same Oxford University mathematician who this past fall calculated that young children were most likely to pitch a tantrum exactly 27 minutes and 48 seconds into a flight, has revealed his newest formula — this one for a perfect proposal.

The 34-year-old Dr. Tom Crawford, who is widely known by his YouTube handle @TomRocksMaths, cooked up a way to quantify whether a marriage proposal is likely to be a roaring success or an embarrassing bust.

His methodology, which is based on an Asda engagement survey of 2,000 Brits, establishes an individual's "proposal score" (S) out of possible 100 points.

"If you follow this recipe for success," he told the Daily Mail, "you'll be giving yourself the best possible chance of getting that 'Yes.'"

Here's how it works…

Dr. Crawford's formula rewards points in four areas and then adds bonus points for superior behavior and subtracts points for each thoughtless faux pas.

Assuming the proposal will be taking place during a home-prepared dinner, the four key factors include the exact time of the meal (M), the staging of the proposal (T), the amount of advance planning (P) and the cost of the engagement ring (C). Each one of these is worth 20 points.

Dr. Crawford calculated that the optimum time to start the momentous meal is exactly 8:06 pm, with the proposal set to occur after the main course, but before the dessert.

The mathematician noted that the suitor should have been planning for this special moment for 68 days and that the ring's value should reflect 2.5 months' salary.

Proposers can supplement their point totals (and thereby increase their chances of a "Yes" response) by delivering a heartfelt engagement speech (+8 points), setting an attractive environment with mood lighting and flowers (+7 points) and queuing up a romantic playlist (+5 points).

These same suitors needed to be mindful of potential score busters…

Checking one's phone is a definite "no-no." If it happens, deduct 20 points.

Leaving the TV on in the background is a distraction that will cost an additional 14 points.

Burning the dinner is a 10-point deduction, and having kids in the house when popping the question is a negative-6 on the score card.

"In terms of things to avoid," Crawford told the Daily Mail, "keep those phones switched off and out of sight, drop the kids off with a babysitter, and don't burn the food!"

Dr. Crawford, a self-proclaimed numberphile, began teaching at the University of Oxford in the 2017. His Tom Rocks Maths YouTube channel claims more than 178,000 subscribers.

Credit: Screen capture via YouTube.com / TomRocksMaths.