Gilbert O'Sullivan had an suprising and significant smash success with the subjective suicidal sadness of this solitary serenade. O'Sullivan wrote 'Alone Again (Naturally)' and says it was not autobiographically based: "A lot of letters I've had have said, it must be awful, your mother dying like that. My father's dead, but that song's got nothing to do with me. It's just that I think I understand that situation. I get the feeling that if someone was jilted at the church, even though he had never contemplated suicide before, it might be such a shattering experience that he would. Maybe I would. Then, in that sort of deep depression, you would probably think of all the bad things that had happened during your life. They'd all come to you. But it's not about me...Everyone wants to know if it's an autobiographical song, based on my father's early death. Well, the fact of the matter is, I didn't know my father very well, and he wasn't a good father anyway. He didn't treat my mother very well."
'Alone Again (Naturally)' went to twenty-one in the Netherlands, three in the UK, two in Ireland, and spent six weeks at number one on both the US pop and adult contemporary charts. It sold over two millions copies and was the second-biggest hit of 1972. The song also received three Grammy Award nominations for Best Male Pop Vocal Performance, Song of the Year, and Record of the Year.
In 1982, O'Sullivan sued his former manager Gordon Mills and won back the master tapes to his recordings and the copyrights to his songs. He later became involved in a landmark legal battle over sampling that changed hip-hop forever. In 1991, Biz Markie sampled the song for the song 'Alone Again' on his 'I Need a Haircut' album on Cold Chillin Records. O'Sullivan recalls: "Biz Markie and they approached us and said, this was in 1990, that we would like to sample your song and use it on a track. So we said okay, and if we like it we'll see where we go from there. They sent it over and what they had done was sampled the intro and then he rapped over it, but then we discovered that he was a comic, a comic rapper, and the one thing I am very guarded about is protecting songs and in particular I'll go to my grave in defending the song to make sure it is never used in the comic scenario which is offensive to those people who bought it for the right reasons. And so therefore we refused. But being the kind of people that they were, they decided to use it anyway, so we had to go to court." The song was removed from the album and O'Sullivan won a cash settlement; although he admits, "I'd rather not have gone through it...'Alone Again (Naturally)' has no comic purpose at all, and it is not a song that people can dismiss like 'Get Down' or 'Clair'. Because it means so much to some people, I will not allow it to be used for karaoke or commercials."
http://www.gilbertosullivan.net/
In a little while from now
If I'm not feeling any less sour
I promise myself to treat myself
And visit a nearby tower
And climbing to the top will throw myself off
In an effort to make it clear to who
Ever what it's like when you're shattered
Left standing in the lurch at a church
Where people saying: "My god, that's tough
She's stood him up"
No point in us remaining
We may as well go home
As I did on my own
Alone again, naturally
To think that only yesterday
I was cheerful, bright and gay
Looking forward to well wouldn't do
The role i was about to play
But as if to knock me down
Reality came around
And without so much, as a mere touch
Cut me into little pieces
Leaving me in doubt
Talk about God and His mercy
Or if He really does exist
Why did He desert me in my hour of need
I truly am indeed
Alone again, naturally
It seems to me that there are more hearts
Broken in the world that can't be mended
Left unattended
What do we do? What do we do?
Alone again, naturally
Now looking back over the years
And whatever else that appears
I remember I cried when my father died
Never wishing to hide the tears
And at sixty-five years old
My mother, God rest her soul,
Couldn't understand why the only man
She had ever loved had been taken
Leaving her to start with a heart so badly broken
Despite encouragement from me
No words were ever spoken
And when she passed away
I cried and cried all day
Alone again, naturally
Alone again, naturally
No comments:
Post a Comment