Alone Again, Naturally

Hello Dear Reader

I had another sign this week. Maybe Uranus is in my Neptune, whatever; but I was in a shop the other day getting my friend a teapot and as I walked in this song - that I had been thinking about covering only that morning - came on, and I was like: that’s it. A sign has been sent.

Dear sweet Gilbert O’Sullivan is to be this week’s unwitting victim.

It’s not like Alone Again, Naturally needs another cover. There are tons of ‘em, enough to rival Yesterday or My Way. And no wonder. It is a phenomenal lyric - so many internal rhymes, one of the saddest stories ever told in song and a melody that bids you to follow but never makes you sure of where you will end up. Shirley Bassey, Sarah Vaughan, Michael Bublé - basically everybody has had a crack at it. Even Nina Simone; although her re-worked lyrics make the song even sadder, as if that were possible. Worth a listen, but you’ll need a stiff drink afterwards.

So why do it? What could yet another cover add to the canon? I am always the first person to talk myself out of something, and so I spent the first part of this week avoiding the song and thinking maybe I should turn my attention to the first Gilbert O’Sullivan song I ever loved - What’s In A Kiss.

For I have a confession to make, and it’s only now that I realise I can make it. In 1981, my mother brought home the LP Off Centre - O’Sullivan’s latest album at the time - and it became my new favourite record. Here is the cover:

It took until this week to realise that I had been influenced by this photograph for most of my life. It had lodged in my subconscious at a formative age only for me to spend remaining years trying to explain to art directors and photographers what it was I going for on a shoot. It just made so much sense to me. A man and his piano - a whole world.

What’s In A Kiss - O’Sullivan’s last UK Top 20 hit, I believe - is a lovely pop song and I can see why a seven year old music mad kid might fall for it as I did. But there’s a reason it hasn’t endured like his best known song, and a reason why it spoke to me for only a season. Alone Again, Naturally is an evergreen classic that talks to the listener at every point in their life.

In a few covers, the artists drop the Middle 8 (which is actually only six bars long) and I understand this musically - the key shift is at odds with the main body of the song but to lose it is, I feel, to desecrate the lyric. It’s the bit where all the threads of the song are gathered together to draw a conclusion. An incredibly sad conclusion: namely that some people, often very decent people, get dealt a really bum hand in life and they never get that Hollywood Ending most pop songs promise.

I think the song is asking us this - are we really on our own? Are all these battles ours, and ours alone, to deal with? Where is God in all this? And what, if any, control do we have over our own fate?

In preparation, I watched a lot of O’Sullivan’s interviews over the years, about this song and also about his writing practise in general. His work ethic is astonishing - still going to his studio most days at the age of 78. Still seeing himself as an amanuensis of sorts for songs that are just waiting for someone to write them; those souls in the ether who are desperate for a songwriter to sit down one day and just get out of their own way for long enough to hear those disembodied voices and give them their moment in the sun.

I didn’t need to watch the interviews to know that O’Sullivan is a thoroughly decent sort. Some years ago now, I returned to Jersey to play a show at the Opera House. Waiting for me backstage was a beautiful bouquet of flowers with a handwritten note from him attached, congratulating me on my progress so far and wishing me luck for the show. He did not have to do that - we have never met, he has no idea how much I love and admire his music - but it was the act of a truly generous and encouraging spirit and I hope to tell him one day how that simple gesture has popped into my head on low days when I wonder what I’m doing with my life.

Originally from Waterford in Ireland, and by way of Swindon in Wiltshire, O’Sullivan has lived for many years in Jersey. I could have not bothered doing a cover for my home island, because, well y’know, my own songs kind of count. But as far as I’m concerned, it is Gilbert O’Sullivan who takes the crown for Jersey’s finest musical export. It is only right that I honour a true master of song, and say thank you, Mr O’Sullivan. Because of your songs, a lot of people the world over have felt a little less alone.

With love as ever,

Nerina xxx