GILBERT ON RTE1 - Irish Television!
The Late Late Show - March 2, 2001
For show photos click here
Welcome back, my next guest is one of Ireland's most distinctive and enduring songwriters. Remember Clair, Get Down, What's In A Kiss. Well with the classic "Alone Again (Naturally)" it's Mr. Gilbert O'Sullivan.
[Gilbert sings Alone Again (Naturally)]
P.Kenny: Come on over Gilbert.
Gilbert: Hi Pat.
P.Kenny: It's good to see you again.
Gilbert: It's good to see you.
P.Kenny: And very welcome to the studio and Mike on guitar.
Gilbert: Mike Brookfield on guitar absolutely.
Alone Again [Naturally] - a Classic! P.Kenny: How old is that song? How long ago was it written?
Gilbert: It was written when it was recorded. So it's about 1972.
P.Kenny: It's almost over 30 years old.
Gilbert: Yes it's incredible.
P.Kenny: It passes that test of time very well.
O'Sullivan - The Poet P.Kenny: Brendan O'Caroll who was on earlier. I didn't know this. He's a huge fan of yours, has your albums, used to copy you, used to wear the gear when he was younger.
Gilbert: He got away with that?
P.Kenny: He got away with that.
P.Kenny: But he said when I described you as one of our finest singer-song writers. He said no, no you've got it wrong Gilbert O'Sullivan is a poet. That's what he said about you. Your lyrics are so profound and they stand so well even without the music.
Pop Music & Song Writing P.Kenny: And what keeps you in this business. You don't have to be in this business any more.
Gilbert: I love it. I love Pop Music.
P.Kenny: You love Pop Music.
Gilbert: And I love writing songs. And the writing songs leads to recording. It's something that I love. It's in me to write songs. I always loved pop music and I have that enthusiasm and the drive and determination to be successful.
Radio Addict & Musical Favorites P.Kenny: What do you think of the chart stuff now?
Gilbert: I like it.
P.Kenny: Do you watch "The Top of The Pops". Do you watch the "Brit Awards" for instance?
Gilbert: No I don't watch those programs but I listen to the radio everyday. I am a radio addict. I hear everything that's going on and I buy cds by most people. I keep up with everything because I think as a songwriter to be a contemporary songwriter you have to listen to everything and try and learn from it. And you can never stop learning. I've been writing for about 35 years but you never stop learning. There is always new ways to say I love you. There's always little tunes you can come up with better than the ones you've thought you've came up with before.
P.Kenny: What do you like at the moment. Off the top of your head? Is there anyone in particular?
Gilbert: That I liked at the moment? I think people like David Gray. He's very good. He has a very distinctive voice. I like a lot of the pop-country artists like Lee Ann Womack and people like that.
P.Kenny: Do you admire the singer-song writer as distinct from The Westlifes who may not write at all or may write very little. The songsmiths, the Tinpan Alley people who actually write songs for these guys.
Songwriters, Westlife, The Sixties
Gilbert: I've always loved songs. So therefore, the songwriters, the Berlins, the Cole Porters, Goffin-King, Mann-Weil, through to Lennon/McCartney, Bacharach and David. I've always liked that. Because as a songwriter that's where you learn your craft from by listening to their songs and the performers that sang them. But people like Westlife, they've coming in under a lot of criticism. What I like about Westlife is that they have the ability at a very young age to sing so well. They have vibrato. They have experience of singers that have been doing it for many years. The only thing that perhaps they lack is that distinctiveness to make them sound good to others.
P.Kenny: Their current thing is "Uptown Girl" - the Billy Joel song and they do it so well.
Gilbert: Absolutely, you can place them anywhere and they would sing wonderfully. But on the other hand they need to find a distinction so that every time you hear a record you know it's them. That's where the girls, who are also extremely good, I mean everybody sings like Mariah Carey. It's not necessarily something that you have to like. But if you see a seventeen or eighteen year old singing like that. It's quite phenomenal.
P.Kenny: Do you think it's all to do with television? Particularly MTV. They watch MTV in their bedrooms with their hairbrush. They're practicing away and by the time they are discovered they're fully formed as it were.
Gilbert: They are much better than we were in the sixties and stuff. The sixties don't compare to these kids today. But the difference is the Tim Harden's, Leonard Cohen's of this world were very distinctive people. So what the young ones need today is more of a distinctive sound as opposed to sounding as good as all the other ones.
P.Kenny: You mentioned David Gray who is a singer-song writer of course. That seems to make the difference.
P.Kenny: And your own songs? Do you get tired of the old ones or do you just not sing them often enough to get tired of them. I mean you don't go on the road that often.
GOS Songs, Touring..Yesterday & Today, Recordings
Gilbert: I don't go on the road that often enough to get tired of them? I make an album every 15 months. Since I last met you, I have made seven albums.
P.Kenny: Seven albums?
Gilbert: That's over a ten-year period. And that's kind of making up for lost time.
P.Kenny: You've actually shocked me to think that it's been almost ten years since you were last in this studio.
Gilbert: It's about that, isn't it?
Gilbert: We just came back from Australia, where I did my first tour ever. In the early seventies I was very successful there but I never went because I felt as a songwriter, if I started traveling all over the world, I'd lose out on the writing stuff. So while we were successful in America and Australia and all those kind of places in the early 70's, I just stayed at home. We did a concert there a couple of months ago in Sydney. It was really strange to walk out in front of an audience and say it's nice to be here after 30 years. It's an incredible thing.
P.Kenny: And to have a response and the warmth of the response to your songs is extraordinary. That recognition of the first few bars even of an intro.
Gilbert: Well certain songs in certain countries mean more to others. In England it's Clair, that's the most popular song. In America it's Alone Again.
Clair, the song, the daughter, the Midgit?
P.Kenny: Clair was written about a little girl...was it Gordon Mills daughter?
Gilbert: Yes.
P.Kenny: And how old was she when you wrote that song?
Gilbert: She was about three or four. I used baby-sit for them so I used to look after her and I love kids anyway.
P.Kenny: Where is Clair today? Is she still around? Is she married? Has she got kids?
Gilbert: Yes she is married. We send a little present every Christmas. I haven't really spoken to her since all the legal problems and stuff. But I will do one day.
P.Kenny: I don't think she holds it against you that you went to court against her father. There's some article in a magazine that suggested that she didn't have any rancor for you about that.
Gilbert: No I don't think so. Time is a great healer anyway. I was very close to the family and it obviously hurt a lot of people.
Gilbert: But what is interesting about Clair is that it was a long time ago. I have two children and when my daughter was quite small, Tara just a few years ago I would walk with her around St. Helier in Jersey. And people would go up and say… Is that Clair? Now you must remember that was almost 25 years ago.
P.Kenny: So she's three years old forever.
Gilbert: So I would say yes, she's a midgit!
P.Kenny: You had tremendous doggedness. We talked about this the last time you were on as you say ten years ago. But to pursue a case that lasted, was it five years?
The 1980's Court Case and its effect on the Music Industry
Gilbert: Yes something like that.
P.Kenny: And after two and half years, they said look Gilbert, your lawyers, you're in the right but forget it. But this is...But you didn't.
Gilbert: I think if you believe in something, you fight for it. But it has to be for the right reason. Not the wrong reason. The wrong reason would have been for money. The right reason was for something that meant very much to me. Which had nothing to do with money. And that's what I fort. But of course it becomes more than that. Most people's view on what happened is it was all about money. The spin on the O'Sullivan case was all bout money. But it wasn't.
P.Kenny: Were you comfortable before that? Did you need that money that accrued from the case?
Gilbert: No, no not at all. I didn't do it for that. So it had no kind of relevance.
P.Kenny: You would be risking your money. Whatever you had in order to pay for the case if you had lost.
Gilbert: I believed that I could have lost. So I took that into account.
P.Kenny: It shows you how determined and dogged you can be.
Gilbert: People say that I hope it helps other people. But it's very difficult for people who are in the position to financial pay for those things. It's a bit like the Savoy. You can walk in there but can you stay there. It's that sort of scenario.
P.Kenny: Did it cause a precedent for other artists, your victory because that's what it's really all about. If other people can learn and profit from the case when they feel they were exploited. Maybe when they were to young, .sign on the dotted line maybe without the proper advice.
Gilbert: Yes it did set a precedent. It also gave other artists ideas about getting back their masters. Sting went for it and then Elton. Elton John and Bernie Taupin went to get back all their masters.
P.Kenny: And they all own their own stuff?
Gilbert: No, no they don't. They wanted to. I mean I was given it. I wasn't looking for it.
P.Kenny: Oh, that was a little codicil, if you like, to the judge's decision.
Gilbert: It was wonderful. But then people like Elton John and Bernie Taupin thought that they could get back their masters. George Michael tried very much the same thing. But in a way I think they did it for the wrong reasons. The companies that they were wanting them back from had actually been very good to them.
P.Kenny: They had gone in with their eyes wide open.
Gilbert: I think they were being a little greedy.
P.Kenny: You were very young and utterly inexperienced when you got locked into that particular situation with Gordon Mills.
Music Biz -- Do's and Don'ts, Gordon Mills, Bisto Kid Image
Gilbert: I think you have to be. If I saw a young singer, writer today who wanted to come into this business to make money. I would send him away. I believe you have to have that kind of catch 22 naivety, because if you understand the business, the financial side of it. then you're not really concentrating on what you should be doing which is the music . But if you're only interested in the music, then you're going to be naïve about the business. It's important that you have people that kind of represent you and can take care of that side.
P.Kenny: So you want a good mentor. Someone who is going appreciate that you have to be left alone to do your thing. But you would mind you legally and in every other way.
Gilbert: Gordon Mills to his credit was extremely good. Because he loved songwriting. He hated how I looked. I mean, most people did. This guy with a cap and boots. It was the era of flower power, long hair and stuff. There was this guy who wore a Buster Keaton-Charley Chaplin type jacket stuff and cap. I mean it was very unusual. Right?
P.Kenny: It was.
Gilbert: People liked the songs but the look was you know. It didn't empress the girls either.
P.Kenny: And then you changed the look after a couple of albums didn't you?
Gilbert: I did because I liked images and stuff and once I had established it - I had for three years before and I was successful. But Gordon Mills was very good; he saw that I wanted to concentrate on the writing. And he did take care of me very well in the beginning. It was just towards end that things got a little out of hand.
P.Kenny: You also had another go about with someone who sampled your music. Sampling is big time stuff now. And that set a precedent.
Sampling Music, Biz Markey & Veto Power!
Gilbert: Yes, that was a black rapper in America called Biz-Markey. A massive...he filled three chairs. He sampled the introduction of "Alone Again." And asked if he could use it. And I said, If I liked it, because I own the rights, I 'd consider it. I didn't like it. The thing with "Alone Again" you have to look after it. You have look after a song that is quite serious, you mustn't allow it to be abuse comically or otherwise. We often get requests for it to go into a film, if the film is a comedy, we say no. Because I think it's very important, not so much from my point of view but from the people who love that song. Once a song is out there, it is not yours anymore. It belongs to the people who bought it, the people who like it. So therefore, if they were to see on a commercial for a washing machine with different words it would be awful.. So we said no to it because it he was a comic thing. But they still did it. So we had to go to New York. The funny thing was that they were a small company assigned to a large company like Warner Bros was the major company. But they were an independent company. And even in court after four or five days when the judge said this is not going well for you.
P.Kenny: Which is a message any defendant in court should know that this is the time to settle.
Gilbert: He said remove the product from the shelves by the following Monday, I think it was the Friday and we came back to court on Monday and they hadn't done it. I mean It's a black gangster-rap thing. And so the Judge said ok it's coming up to Christmas. I think we were heading to the Christmas Period. If you don't remove the product in the next couple of days I'll see that all the Warner Brothers product is be removed. So within an hour of the day finishing - it was settled.
P.Kenny: Anyway you are going on tour in Ireland. You're in the Corrib Great Southern Hallway, Galway, Monday, 26th of March. In the University Concert Hall, in Limerick, on Tuesday 27th, Thursday the 29th in the Olympia and Friday in The Cork Opera House, on Friday the 30th. Are you looking forward to it?
Eire Tour, The Irlish Generation and the New CD/Single
Gilbert: Yes I am! We came back to Dublin three years ago. Tickets are doing well so we might do another show in Dublin. About five years ago we did Galway, Limerick so its nice to do that. I always try to do concerts here because I am one of you. So you know.
P.Kenny: Your new album is called "Irlish" (I R L I S H), a kind of a mixture of Ireland and English.
Gilbert: It's the generation of the people that went to England in the 50s for a better life. It's reverse now. Everybody wants to come to Ireland. There was a big generation that went other there. You're Irish my birth tradition but you were brought up in England. So that you're sort of an "Irlish" element. In England you are looked upon as Irish and in Ireland some are looked upon you as English. So you are caught between the two.
P.Kenny: And that's what the album is called. Which song are you going to do for us now from it?
Gilbert: I'm doing the single from it, which is going to be released in a couple of weeks. It's called "Have It".
P.Kenny: Thanks very much for coming here tonight.
Gilbert: It's good to see you.
[Gilbert sings Have It]
**NOTES & THANK YOUS**
For those us that live in the "Colonies" and the rest of world!
RTE1 - (Irish state television. RTE means Raidio Telefis Eireann - it's Irish for "Irish Radio & Television"). TARA TV is co-owned by RTE and others and is beamed to Irish ex-pats in Britain on the SKY satellite sytem. The interview with Gilbert was conducted by Pat Kenny on The Late Late Show - the longest running chat show in television history.
A special "thank you" to my main-man in London - David Birch (photos), to Liamy Mac Nally from Westport, Co Mayo in Ireland for the history lesson and to Brian King for the Tour Poster.