A small, certain promise—The Partridge Family’s “As Long as You’re There” carries the glow of realizing that ordinary life is enough when the right person is within arm’s reach.
Let’s pin the essentials right up front. “As Long as You’re There” is the closing track on side two of The Partridge Family Notebook (Bell Records, November 1972), written by Adam Miller, running right around three minutes (listed at 3:04 on the LP). It was recorded September 4, 1972 at United Western (Hollywood) with producer Wes Farrell, and—like most of the album’s songs—turned up on the TV series soon after. The album itself peaked at No. 41 on the Billboard 200 in January 1973.
If your first memory of the tune is from television, you’re right on time: the family performs it in Season 3, Episode 13, “For Sale by Owner,” first aired December 29, 1972—one of those sweet story beats where a Partridge song arrives not as spectacle, but as part of the household routine.
On paper, the personnel reads like a postcard from Los Angeles studio royalty—Hal Blaine on drums, Joe Osborn and Max Bennett on bass, guitars from Dennis Budimir, Larry Carlton, Louie Shelton, Tommy Tedesco, keys from Larry Knechtel and Mike Melvoin, and the Ron Hicklin Singers (with Shirley Jones folded into that blend) feathering harmonies behind David Cassidy’s lead. That’s why the record feels so neighborly: it’s precision built to sound like a living room.
What the song says—especially to older ears—is disarmingly plain. Without quoting it in full, the lyric holds a simple vow: if you’re here, I’m all right. No thunder, no courtroom declarations—just the scale of daily life set to a pulse that reassures rather than insists. Cassidy sings it without reaching, the way people talk when they mean every word: consonants placed carefully, vowels left to ring just long enough for the band to answer and step back. The arrangement obeys the same modesty. Blaine’s snare sits a hair behind the beat, the bass nudges the bar line forward, guitars toss off small glints at the ends of phrases, and Melvoin’s keys keep a low amber halo around the melody. It’s tenderness measured in restraint, a Partridge hallmark at their best.
Placement matters. On Notebook, the song sits at the curtain—side two, track five—after a sequence that moves from Brill Building polish (“Looking Through the Eyes of Love,” a Top 40 U.S. single) into homier sentiments. Letting “As Long as You’re There” close the book is canny: the album’s last word isn’t triumph; it’s continuance. You can feel Bell Records and Wes Farrell leaning into what the project did better than almost anyone—making records that belong in ordinary rooms.
There’s also a quiet thrill in the authorship. Adam Miller’s pen gives the group one of its most unadorned confessions—no high-concept metaphor, just the fact that the right presence shrinks the day’s troubles to size. Set against Notebook’s mix of covers and commission pieces, it reads like a private page slipped into the family scrapbook: a song small enough to be true every day, not just on the night the cameras are rolling.
What keeps the track warm decades later is usefulness. Plenty of songs promise the moon; this one offers pace. It knows how people actually live: getting supper on the table, tidying the house, trying to be decent. In that world, the difference between a good evening and a hard one can be as simple as having the right person humming in the next room. The record accepts that premise and builds a pocket you can stand inside. By the time the fade arrives, nothing has changed and everything has—the room is the same, but its temperature has shifted.
A tidy scrapbook for the archivists: Artist: The Partridge Family. Song: “As Long as You’re There.” Writer: Adam Miller. Album: The Partridge Family Notebook (Bell, Nov 1972), side two, track five, ~3:04; recorded Sept 4, 1972 at United Western (Hollywood); producer: Wes Farrell; album peak: Billboard 200 #41. TV: featured in S3E13 “For Sale by Owner” (Dec 29, 1972). Core personnel (album): David Cassidy (lead), Hal Blaine, Joe Osborn/Max Bennett, Dennis Budimir/Larry Carlton/Louie Shelton/Tommy Tedesco, Larry Knechtel/Mike Melvoin, Ron Hicklin Singers with Shirley Jones.
Put it on some evening when the house is still. Notice how your shoulders drop. The song doesn’t ask for a grand gesture; it reminds you that presence is a practice. And when the last chord slides into quiet, the promise remains right where you can use it: as long as you’re there, I’m all right.