David Gates

David Ashworth Gates worked as a Los Angeles session musician, arranger and producer before Bread, writing for other acts along the way. He wrote and sang almost every Bread hit — “Make It with You,” “If,” “Baby I’m-a Want You,” “Everything I Own” — and later had solo success with “Goodbye Girl.” He has said the song was written in memory of his father, who died in 1963; listeners have consistently heard it as a romantic song instead.