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This is a transcript of a radio interview Gilbert did with BBC Radio 2 in the UK with Steve Wright, broadcast on the 24th September 2003. Also in the studio and part of Steve's team were Tim Lee and Janey Lee Grace.
As an introduction to the interview Steve played "GET DOWN".
STEVE: Well now we are going to welcome back Gilbert O'Sullivan, who's here.... Gilbert O'Sullivan.
APPLAUSE
STEVE: And you said, didn't you, the other day Tim, one of the greatest song writers that ever lived.
TIM: Absolutely and also I think if you look at songs like "We Will" and you know that's one of my favourites, possibly one of our foremost poets as well.
GILBERT: I don't think song writers are poets, there are good lyricists and there are bad lyricists. The closest I get to poetry is Spike Milligan.
TIM: Really?
GILBERT: I love Spike Milligan.
TIM: I think the image is you evoking a lot of your songs and I do love "We Will"?
GILBERT: That's what a lyricist's job is to do, to create that.
STEVE: Yeah?
GILBERT: But it's not poetry, it's not meant to be on it's own. It's meant to be with the music.
STEVE: I know from talking to you before that you are a bit of a looking forward guy. You don't really like to look back. It's almost like you don't really want to discuss songs that you wrote in the 70s and 80s and yet those are in a sense your heritage. McCartney's the same.
GILBERT: I do them when you do a concert for two hours. You are performing those songs, so I mean that's the bottom line. I don't think songwriters should talk about their songs anyway, I think they should just write them....
STEVE: Really?
GILBERT: And then let people make up their own minds what they're about.
STEVE: Could you tell Elvis Costello that?
LAUGHTER
JANEY LEE: Truth is we are interested in who you wrote various songs about and what was the inspiration behind certain songs. You just have to tell us to 'shut it' if you don't want to answer.
GILBERT: The point is, say you had a particular song you liked, not necessarily of mine but of anybody, and then they told you what it was about and it went against what you actually thought it was about
JANEY LEE: Yeah.
GILBERT: It would spoil it for you.
STEVE: Yeah I asked George Michael one time about "Careless Whisper". And I thought okay, Los Angeles...in a red sky....coming down at night. And he said no, he wrote it in Bushy. And I thought well that's disappointing, very disappointing indeed.
LAUGHTER
STEVE: You know I like some of your more unusual songs and some of the songs that people generally don't know about like "Susan Van Heusen" is one of my favourites and "Mr. Moody's Garden".
GILBERT: That was Kenny Everett's (BBC Radio 1 disc jockey) favourite.
STEVE: Yeah perhaps that's where I heard it, and from that moment when I heard "Mr. Moody's Garden", I thought there's nothing like this guy, what's he up to?
GILBERT: And you hadn't even seen how I looked at the time.
STEVE: In a sense, have we later discovered that, that was not you and that was an image you created or was that you at the time?
GILBERT: If I created it, it was me.
STEVE: Well don't get argumentative, just tell me the answer, what's the answer?
GILBERT: The answer is that it was very much me (laughing). Nobody else would be mad enough to do something like that.
STEVE: You couldn't have been walking around like that?
GILBERT: Yeah but in 1967, I mean when Janey hears, when was this, a hundred years ago? Late 60s Flower Power, you have the image of the late 60s, beads, kaftans, long hair and there's this guy looking like Buster Keaton, Charlie Chaplin with pudding basin haircut, cap, long trousers, Charlie Chaplin jacket. This guy is going to Bernie Andrews and John Peel (BBC Radio 1 disc jockey) show recording and that's how I looked. The great thing was that I was able to get away with that kind of look because I wrote what I thought and still believe are good songs.
STEVE: But was it to bring the songs to the attention of people?
GILBERT: To be different Steve.
STEVE: It was an image is what I'm saying.
GILBERT: It's a word that doesn't appear anywhere in music today, to be different.
STEVE: Because I used to read stuff about you and it used to say that he collects old newspapers and he piles them high, and I thought, yeah I believed it at the time but now looking back was I right to believe it?
GILBERT: I have all those of course because that's the lyricist in you. You collect things because you get ideas for songs and stuff. And I think the character thing, I just wanted to be different. It was impossible to be different and look good.
TIM: Did you walk around Swindon looking like that? Because I grew up in Swindon, did you get away with that?
GILBERT: I walked around in Vegas looking like that.
LAUGHTER
GILBERT: Hobnail boots, pudding basin haircut, I mean they were arresting me every evening.
JANEY LEE: I think the question that both Steve and Tim would love to be able to ask you but obviously don't want to draw any attention to it is "how have you managed to keep your hair?" They are just utterly gutted, the both of them.
GILBERT: That's unfair Janey.
STEVE: But you look, you must be about 80 or 90 years old by now and you just look fantastic Gilbert, brilliant.
LAUGHTER
TIM: Have you got a picture in the attic?
GILBERT: Sometimes when people say to me "you look the same as you did 30 years ago", I'm not sure it's a compliment. You have to change but I think the great thing is that what keeps me invigorated is just music, I mean it's the love of music. You can't stop yourself getting older but you can have the same enthusiasm you had 35 years ago for music.
STEVE: By the way this girl on the cover is?
GILBERT: It's a nice cover, show the audience it.
STEVE: You just hold that out to everybody, a semi-naked girl. She's obviously naked behind the piano there.
GILBERT: That piano is from about 1850, I bought that in....
STEVE: I'm not interested in that, just talk about the girl. Who's the girl?
GILBERT: It was a very sweet girl who came in, just a model for the day.
STEVE: He's talking about the piano, no ones interested in the piano.
TIM: Yes they are because the album is called "Piano Foreplay", thence the semi-naked girl in the picture.
GILBERT: Absolutely.
STEVE: I know that.
GILBERT: I was there when the session was done Steve.
STEVE: Really you probably wrecked that piano now by playing, probably with your hand movements that you do.
GILBERT: I like sensuality, so it's a kind of sensuous cover.
STEVE: Let me just play, this is called "Make My Day". This is really classic Gilbert O'Sullivan isn't it?
GILBERT: Yes it's the kind of song that if you were a real old Gilbert O'Sullivan fan then you....
TIM: It does seem to hark back to your classic days of the 70s and 80s.
STEVE: Let me just play it and we will be back in just a moment with Gilbert O'Sullivan......Gilbert O'Sullivan, Radio 2 don't move, listen to this.
"MAKE MY DAY" Plays.
STEVE: Gilbert O'Sullivan that was, that's very nice. You see now that's just simplicity isn't it really?
GILBERT: Well that's a kinda traditional G-O-S stuff I think.
STEVE: Yeah.
GILBERT: Which is nice too to be able to do that and stuff 'cause it pleases those older fans but it is also nice to do newer things, but I know for example last week you had Parkinson (UK chat show host) on.
STEVE: We did yeah.
GILBERT: And do you know his band are the band on the whole album. It's Laurie Holloway's Trio.
STEVE: Oh is it Laurie Holloway?
TIM: Fantastic.
STEVE: Fantastic. Yeah 'cause he's a musician's musician.
GILBERT: They are great musicians, because Laurie and his trio came over to Jersey, recorded the whole album in a few days and stuff. They don't want to do twenty takes and stuff. After about the first take they think "do we have to do it again?"
TIM: And that's great. so you recorded the whole album in Jersey no going to Monserrat or coming to London or anything like that?
GILBERT: This is the first time where I've done where it is basically, it's the same musicians on every track. In fact there is a double bass on every track bar one and it is Laurie's Trio. But we brought in the odd extra musician like John Parricelli, he's a sort of jazz guitarist. It has a jazz tinge to it, but it is kinda still for me they are good pop songs.
JANEY LEE: Are you going to release a single? Or do you feel that it is not worth trying going for the singles market at this point?
GILBERT: Well it's very interesting that because it boils down to Radio 2, in other words..
JANEY LEE: Obviously you won't feel any pressure.
STEVE: It's up to you.
GILBERT: I think "Make My Day" is being talked about as being released as a single, but it is like the old days of Radio 1 and stuff, middle 70s, Steve will tell you this. If you were going to bring out a single and you weren't getting a good reaction from Radio 1 then the record company were inclined to say don't do it. These days with Radio 2 being so powerful, if Radio 2 don't support you, you're wasting your time because they are the force on national radio whether we like it or not.
JANEY LEE: You are the force.
STEVE: What are you saying, you don't like it?
GILBERT: Radio 2?
STEVE: You said whether you like it or not as if to say you don't like it (joking).
GILBERT: Like what?
STEVE: The power of Radio 2.
LAUGHTER
TIM: He's just trying to stir things up.
STEVE: Yeah what's wrong with that?
TIM: Can I ask another question, do you ever sit down and write a song and think "oh that would be good for so-and-so?"
GILBERT: No.
TIM: Do you ever sit down and think I'm going to write a song maybe for somebody else?
GILBERT: No I've always written for myself, but I suppose I do have those time when I think "that would suit somebody". There's a track on here I think called "Answers On A Postcard (Please)". I've always thought that, what's her name whose's in that musical in London?
TIM: Alison Moyet.
GILBERT: Alison Moyet, she did "That Ole Devil Called Love", "Answers On A Postcard" I thought at the time of writing that that might suit her. So occasionally I might think like that but it is always written for myself because that's a kinda priority for me.
STEVE: While it seemed that you were away, I think that the public, they saw you in this court case with your former management and all of that stuff, all of that trauma...
GILBERT: That's a long time ago.
STEVE: I know it is but I am thinking the public must have thought you'd had a block, you know writer's block, but you didn't did you?
GILBERT: No I've never had writer's block, what you do is the quality of your material depending on what you are going through mentally at the time may not be that good, but the key is always to be doing it.
STEVE: How do you work best? Do you work best under pressure or to deadlines or do you work best when you are just left alone?
GILBERT: It's self inflicted, it's the discipline you put on yourself to just go in on a Monday morning at nine o'clock when it is miserable out and sit there till five and then do it for five days, do it for a month, do it for six months, however how long it takes. I mean writing lyrics is a bit like school. You start with an empty notebook and you just kinda have to sit there. You have to be very disciplined to kinda stick with it.
TIM: Is that what you do? You go in like that 9 to 5?
GILBERT: Yeah, it's the Brill Building mentality, that I've always kind of adhered to. I like that, Diane Warren is another like that. She sits there at nine because it's all about the next song.
STEVE: Now what about living on Jersey because we were talking about islands the other day, weren't we? It was quite interesting, you could put the population of.....
TIM: Well we thought that you could put the population of China stood shoulder to shoulder on the Isle of Wight, then we thought actually no that you could do that with the entire population of the whole world, then somebody said no you could do it on the Isle of Man. We were thinking were Jersey came in?
STEVE: Could you get....
GILBERT: Not the....Jersey has a population of about 80,000 I think, it's about 80,000. It's a small island, 9 by 6. It is the largest of the Channel Islands.
STEVE: What's it like there? What's it like living there?
GILBERT: Ah it's beautiful, it's beautiful there, it's a wonderful place to bring up children.
STEVE: Is Charlie Hungerford (character from the BBC drama Bergerac 1981/91, set on Jersey) still running it or not?
GILBERT: The great thing about Bergerac, what it did for Jersey was that it promoted the island all around the world. And you get people coming to Jersey, say in the middle of November and December when it really quite cold, same as here and they think "where's the sun?", because they see Bergerac and Bergerac is always sunny.
STEVE: Do you have to be rich to live there?
GILBERT: I did. There are certain conditions, controls that allow you to go in. They have this kind of system, you have to come under a certain bracket to be allowed in. It is very restrictive in many ways but it suited us because it was the end of my court case and we could have gone back to England and we had a young child that was just about to go to school plus for me prolifically in terms of product, I mean I've written really good material, I've really been happy working there.
STEVE: Do you miss Ireland or do you get back to Ireland?
GILBERT: No I don't miss Ireland because I'm Irish by birth and I'm very proud of my roots. I was raised in Swindon, my team the greatest football team in...
TIM: Absolutely...in the world in fact. You wouldn't like to take over Swindon would you and use your dosh that you got stashed away in Jersey in a way that say Abramovich (Russian owner of Chelsea Football Club in the UK) has with Chelsea.
GILBERT: We have our jockey friend...Willie is (Willie Carson, former jockey but now chairman of Swindon Football Club) there and he's growing in stature every season.
TIM: Just a bit more money please Willie.
GILBERT: Yeah I like Swindon, you come from...?
STEVE: I'm London really, yes I've been to Swindon though when I worked for G-W-R (Local radio station in Swindon 97.2 to 102.2 FM).
TIM: You just went to see the roundabouts.
GILBERT: We live up in Old Town, Swindon is our home.
STEVE: Now what about the future, now because I know that you tour a lot, 'cause I sometimes am driving around and I hear you on local radio. You love to tour don't you?
GILBERT: You have to, it's no good saying "right I've made a record that's it I'm going to sit back and do the next one". You have to get out there and promote it. We're going to rehearsals now with this album I won't be using Laurie's Trio because they will be too busy on Parky.
STEVE: They'll be on Parky.
GILBERT: Although we are going to use them on Top of the Pop 2.
STEVE: You're going to do a Top of the Pop thingy.
GILBERT: So they will be doing that and we'll get on the road by the end of the year.
STEVE: Great Gilbert O'Sullivan's new album "Piano Foreplay" is out now and you'll like it.
GILBERT: It's really good.
STEVE: It actually is.
TIM: Really is.
STEVE: Thank you very much Gilbert see you next time.
GILBERT: Good to see all of you.
STEVE: Thank you very much.......Gilbert O'Sullivan
"NOTHING RHYMED" Plays
THANKS JANE |
