Music Friday Flashback: The Yardbirds Promise to Give Diamond Rings in Exchange ‘For Your Love’

Welcome to Music Friday when we bring you cool throwback 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 with top-six chart success in the U.S., Canada and the U.K.

The song is basically a love treatise, with lead singer Keith Relf listing 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 more reasonable 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/ Double takes I will excite / Make you dream of me at night.”

The Yardbirds have been called “the most impressive guitar band in rock music,” because the group launched the careers of guitar legends Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck and Jimmy Page.

Interestingly, “For Your Love” was the straw that broke the camel’s back for a 20-year-old Clapton. After playing lead guitar on the song, Clapton left the band because he believed the song signaled that The Yardbirds were 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.

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 bring 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,
To make you dream of me at night.

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

For your love, for your love,
I would give the stars above.
For your love, for your love,
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 stars and the sun '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.