This is a transcript of a radio interview Gilbert did with BBC Radio 2 in the UK with Johnnie Walker, broadcast on the 11th February 1998.
JOHNNIE: Back at the time of number 1 hit's like "Clair" and "Get Down" Gilbert O' Sullivan's trademark was his unusual image, pudding basin haircut, short trousers, flat cap. Like a schoolboy from the 1930's. His career was then interrupted by a bitter dispute with his manager Gordon Mills, now although Gilbert eventually won his court case the litigation kept him away from performing for a number of years. He spent the '80's recharging his batteries and moving to Jersey, where he still lives. The '90's have been a much better decade: three new albums, a No. 1 single in Japan and a return to live performances. He joins me now to talk about his latest album "Singer Sowing Machine" which takes a long hard look at life, love and experience, and pass on a tip or two about cleaning windows. But I didn't realise you were an expert at cleaning windows Gilbert!
GILBERT: Absolutely, an honourable profession.
JOHNNIE: Yeah, it was a lot harder in those days though wasn't it. Now they've got the old squeegee thing.
GILBERT: Yeah, we just had the cloths and a bucket of water. That's right, they use these quite expertly too. It looks… but, I clean windows at home. I do them at home on the inside and I've tried using those rubber things. I throw them away. It's like computers, I mean I go back to the cloth and the bucket.
JOHNNIE: Yeah, there's nothing like a good old shammy. So why Jersey? What moved you out there?
GILBERT: I like Jersey. It was at a point when all the legal stuff was over and I could have come back to Surrey where we had lived before, but we had two young children. And the nice thing about Jersey, apart from it being a beautiful island, it's a good place to raise children.
JOHNNIE: Where you glad you got involved in all that litigation?
GILBERT: Was I glad? Of course not! Who wants to get involved in that sort of thing?
JOHNNIE: No, no, I mean at the end of it though.
GILBERT: I was glad I won it.
JOHNNIE: But you'd much rather have not had done.
GILBERT: You don't want to put people through that kind of pain, apart from the pain you go through yourself. If you feel that strongly about something, no matter what it is, if it involves litigation or just trying to sort of get your point across then you're gonna push for it.
JOHNNIE: Yeah. So your new album. Why have you called it "Singer Sowing Machine"?
GILBERT: It's the thing about the singer/songwriter. People sort of refer to people like me as a singer-songwriter. I don't mind being a songwriter, but the singer/songwriter has a kind of old, kind of it's synonymous with the '70's if you like, the Carole King, James Taylor era and I was associated with that so I kind of a joke when people say are you a singer/songwriter I say 'No, I'm a singer sowing machine'. So in Japan because they don't know what sowing machines are, 'Singer' sorry, they know what sowing machines are, they think it's kind of mystical.
JOHNNIE: So you've had a number one there.
GILBERT: Yeah, we do well. It's this thing about big in Japan, it's actually true! The argument is once you fail in your own country, then you take off in these other places. But strangely enough Japan is an interesting market. They like the kind of thing I do. I'm not going to argue with it, and it's been good. We go back there every year and they also help us because of the success we've had there, finance the new albums. We've done 6 now since I last met you. So it's a kind of, that's the important thing, so it's nice that they are that involved and like what I'm doing enough to be able to help me make the records, which you know, we release almost everywhere.
JOHNNIE: What's it like touring in Japan. Is it all sort of very organised.
GILBERT: We've just come back actually. We were there over Christmas, we actually worked Christmas day. First time I've ever done that. What can I say it's a cliché . The people are lovely because they have this custom of politeness and they genuinely behave that way, and so that's the first thing that strikes you, the bowing, no matter who it is, whether it's room service or the people who are meeting you from record companies. They are just extremely nice people. As business people, cause I deal with them on a business level too, as the owner of my records and stuff, they're very sharp. They're no fools, but they're very honest people to deal with. I mean in other words if there's a situation that occurs where they have made a mistake, you know in Europe it could take you weeks to untangle it, once the Japanese realise they have made an error, they immediately put it right, because they don't like that kind of thing. So they are good to deal with, hard, but good business people. On a personal level they are just wonderful. Audiences they're just very responsive. There is this thing that they don't get up and jump around because it's not in their make up to do that. That's true, but you know, you occasionally see them just about leaving their chairs and sort of looking at, should we?, should we? By the end of the show what we do at the end, we do jumping on the piano and I smash a keyboard into the floor. So that tends to make people want to get up and react. They are a little reserved in that respect, but it's an interesting experience and an enjoyable one.
JOHNNIE: Gilbert O' Sullivan is here on Radio 2. Here's a new song.
"HEAVEN'S ABOVE" Plays.
JOHNNIE: Gilbert O' Sullivan, from the new album, which is called "Singer Sowing Machine" and that's "Heavens Above". He's our guest here on Radio 2. Sounds kind of very idyllic life on Jersey. I mean from what we know, Bergerac and that. The suns always shining, not much crime.
GILBERT: There isn't much crime, but the Bergerac is a kind of a myth because it's shot in summer so you do get people coming to the island expecting sunshine in December and stuff. So that isn't true, but it is idyllic in many other ways, because it's a very healthy climate. It's beautiful beaches, very unpolluted and, you know small roads. I don't drive so it's, so you don't see many big cars and stuff. There's 20 mile an hour speed limit's and stuff and that kind of appeals to me. I'd like to see more footpaths. So it's a very nice atmosphere Jersey. Very French looking but very English in behaviour and stuff of people.
JOHNNIE: 'Cause you've got a song on your album which says 'NOT' so Great Britain. So you're sitting there in your island paradise (Gilbert laughs) looking back and having a bit of a pop really.
GILBERT: Well first of all "Not So Great Britain" is just a good idea for a song , you know, and as a lyricist your always looking for titles, jotting notes down and stuff so that appealed to me. It's a bit like you know unbreak my heart, break my heart. So that as a lyricist your always looking for ideas, and the nicest thing about a title such as "Not So Great Britain", it conjures up all sorts of stories and images and things - that, that you read about , you know, that you pick up ideas in newspapers and stuff, which I do. So you can take off in one verse on one subject. Go into another verse on another subject and so on, and with the common denominator being the title. So it's kind of fun that. Nothing too deep.
JOHNNIE: You always seem to me, I had that sense that, very sensitive person, perhaps a little bit shy. Bit of a reluctant pop star, for want of a better term, in a way (Gilbert laughs). Back then.
GILBERT: Nah, I like being a pop star. But there is a sort of element that the strange thing about being basically shy and yet wanna go on a stage in front of thousands of people. I guess that maybe that's were the image thing comes into it , because you know , in the late '60's when you were on pirate radio and stuff , and I started out wanting to be a performer, it was the kind of look everyone who wanted to look like, was denim shirts and long hair was here to stay. So it was kind of impossible to look different and look good. And so all the people in record companies, who I'd, you know the big record companies all wanted to sign me. I was 19 years of age. They liked the songs I was writing. Publishers were queuing up to sign me and I mean I knew there was a buzz about me, but the record companies would say you know, put the denim shirt on, grow your hair a bit longer and you'll be a great success. And I said I don't wanna do that. I cannot, I had this thing about, this bee in my bonnet about wanting to look different and so therefore, you know, I would cut my hair off very short, which was the opposite of what was fashionable, and I had this Chaplin jacket. I used to dress up. I used to go and see Buster Keaton and Chaplin seasons at the Academy cinema, and you know. I tell now people now I did the John Peel show in 1968 with Bernie Andrews, his producer, and I went to Lower Regent Street, got the afternoon off from work and I wore the Chaplin jacket and the boots and the long trousers. I only wore short trousers in the photograph. I did Kenny Everett's first TV show, were I wore, went along. You know, I mean nobody sort of ridiculed it or anything. They saw this person. They liked his songs and they just thought, well it's what he wants to do, his management haven't told him to do it. God forbid. And it was his idea.
JOHNNIE: Did you have trouble getting rid of that image though?
GILBERT: It's like anything. I mean I had it for sort of five years, after 3 years before I was successful so '67 to 1970 and then you know 2 years with success. It's kind of like, once you've established the key is that the shyness factor means that when you put on the Chaplin jacket, the schoolboy clothes, the cap and you look like the character you want to create. Then you're somebody else. So therefore when your sitting at a piano, and I always felt that sitting at a piano was such a, apart from Jerry Lee Lewis putting your feet up, it was quite boring. So I thought, well if I could look interesting then there's something else for people to latch on to other than seeing me sing the song. So I was kind of conscious of that, and you know, once I dressed like that whoever sore me was just sort of gob smacked and said, you know , what the hell is this guy on, you know.
JOHNNIE: Well, I mean, from the sound of your current show your doing a bit of Jerry Lee Lewis. Standing on the piano, breaking keyboards. I mean, wild man of rock here.
GILBERT: Nah, Well, you know, as you get older you get a little bit wilder. Well I do anyway. The thing about is that the cover of the album is hitting a keyboard into an amp. Right? We all know the rock 'n' roll myth of hitting a guitar into it. So that's a bit of a cliché. So we just thought. What we do is at the end of the show we do a long thing with "Get Down" and it get quite hairy, everybody going crazy and I jump on top of the keyboard and stuff and . Then I just take a keyboard and I smash it to pieces. We're thinking, we're thinking....
JOHNNIE: You wanton vandal you!
GILBERT: We're thinking now of doing the Jimmy Hendrix thing of putting the fuel, the lighter fuel to it (both laugh). So in Liverpool. When we go to Liverpool, I think we go there in June, we're going to, we might do the lighter fuel thing there. it's a bit of a laugh though. Why not?
JOHNNIE: Alright. Well, listen I like to play this, kind of sad ballad from the album "Please Don't Let My Weakness Show." What inspired this song?
GILBERT: Well again it's difficult really Johnnie to kind of talk about. I don't really talk about the songs other than take a long time to write them. Because it's a bit like Francis Bacon the painter said 'If you can talk about them why paint them?'. I've heard people talking about songs and how they wrote this, and I'm engrossed by what they say. But then I listen to it and I get a totally different…and I think are they talking about the same thing. So in a way it's dangerous for a writer, I think, to say, you know, what kind of inspired him. Other than to say that he believes in what he wrote, he likes what he did, he spent a long time doing it and he's happy with it. Therefore it's up to the listener to conjure up that kind of, to get what in effect is the right story of what it's about.
JOHNNIE: Well we've all had our hearts broken haven't we Gilbert, at times?
GILBERT: Yeah I guess so. it's not a sort of flippant subject, and if you are going to write about something like that, you get into the character of what it is your writing. It could be you. It could be a third person. Then you've gotta, you know, you can't be… you know can't treat it lightly.. it's gotta be something you know… What I can say about that song is when I get into the lyric, once I start from the first word. Then I really get engrossed in that particular scenario and I visualise everything that happens. As if it happened. I can sort of see it. It's a visual thing for me, and then once it's finished the next song might be "Not So Great Britain" or "Heavens Above" and so therefore you…you then lock in to the next story. But for all the time that your in that kind of lyrical mode, with that particular song, and also for every song that I write, if there's four verses and a bridge or something , you end up writing ten verses because you get so carried away. You don't want to stop writing, so at the end of it , although you only need four, you still keep going, because you've worked yourself into a situation about it and enjoy writing about it and therefore the words just keep coming. It's a fascinating business songwriting.
JOHNNIE: Well I can only reflect for someone who doesn't like talking about writing his songs that was a long speech.
GILBERT: But it wasn't about that song. It wasn't about that song (Johnnie laughs)...Now, Now, Now.
JOHNNIE: Well now listen were gonna play it anyway. We'll say our good-byes at the end. (Gilbert laughs)
"PLEASE DON'T LET MY WEAKNESS SHOW" Plays
JOHNNIE: Gilbert O' Sullivan from his new album and "Please Don't Let My Weakness Show." Well if ever you can't help yourself and you do let it show Gilbert come round to "Radio 2" and we'll give you a hug.
GILBERT: (Laughs) Now, now. Actually I've been told I had to lighten up because I had an email the other day from some fan who'd sort of read some interviews with me and heard me do a TV interview or something. And the comment on this email which I got wind of was that I was bitter and twisted. So I kind of thought to myself 'Oh my God If that's the kind of impression I am giving I must lighten up.' That's why I think I remind myself of the Fluff Freeman. That brings a smile to my face.
JOHNNIE: Yeah. Well I wouldn't worry too much about what others think.
GILBERT: But It's true. It's very often it's starts from the very first question you get from an interviewer, sometimes if they lead on a leading ..
JOHNNIE: Go on blame me Gilbert it's all my fault.
GILBERT: That's it it's very often that but in your case, no Johnnie.
JOHNNIE: Alright. Well thanks for coming by. It's good to see you.
GILBERT: It's nice to see you too.
JOHNNIE: And Gilbert O'Sullivan will be playing some shows in June in Edinburgh, Manchester, Liverpool and London so look out for him then.
