Despite the fame, glamour and prestige brought about by the recent 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris, the revival of the song “If You Love Me or the original French version Hymn of Love, as sung by Celine Dion, made the Games doubly memorable.
After all the gold, silver, and bronze medals awarded to the winners of the various Olympic games, the beauty and appeal of that old song have once again reverberated in the music world.
The song is still in people’s minds today, and chances are, many people are silently singing or humming it, and doing so brings loving thoughts and images to their minds.
Every line of that song, the lyrics, and its messages speak tons of sacrificing love and the willingness to do anything for his love’s sake.
Singing the song with its lyrics brings to mind life’s happenings that defy reality, things hard to comprehend, and only those who are romantics and others spellbound by love can understand and care about them.
For the sake of one’s love, he will do even the impossible. Imagine that kind of love– the sun tumbling from the sky, the sea drying, but he won’t care about them. Instead, he would stay focused on her Beloved.
Imagine even if he’s the wealthiest man in the universe and loses everything, he can afford to smile, not minding the loss.
Who can ever make that kind of sacrifice because of love?
Even at the end of his life here on earth, he’s still willing to share eternity with her. Beloved—Oh, what an endless kind of love.
No wonder some people make that song their theme song. It can well describe their love, their anxieties, and their willingness to endure to the end.
Truthfully, my dear readers, while I was penning this piece, I silently hummed it, and I felt young again, remembering my own experiences in pursuing the love of my life.
There are so many love stories that have surmounted big life’s challenges. You can read some great stories of love—those obstacles they have encountered.
The song’s strength comes from being based on a true love story—its timeliness is evident. It speaks about loving devotion and the willingness to do the impossible in the name of love.
The song is about the love story of Edith Piaf, who wrote the lyrics, and her friend Marguerite Monnot composed the music. Piaf wrote the lyrics for her lover and the love of her life, the French boxer Marcel Cerdan, who died in a plane crash on Air France Flight 009 in 1949 while he was on his way from Paris to New York to meet Piaf.
“Hymne à l’amour” was translated into English by Piaf’s protégé Eddie Constantine as Hymn to Love; it was also adapted into English as “If You Love Me (Really Love Me) by Geoffrey Parsons.
If You Love Me (Really Love Me)
If the sun should tumble from the skies
If the sea should suddenly run dry
If you love me, really love me
Let it happen, I won’t care
If it seems that everything is lost
I will smile and never count the cost
If you love me, really love me
Let it happen, darling, I won’t care
Shall I catch a shooting star?
Shall I bring it where you are?
If you want me to, I will
You can set me any task.
I’ll do anything you ask.
If you’ll only say you love me still
When, at last, our life on earth is through
I will share eternity with you
If you love me, really love me
Let it happen, I won’t care
If you love me, really love me
Let it happen, darling, I won’t care
