Alone Again (Naturally)

The Story Behind The Song

O’Sullivan, Raymond as he was then known, was born in Waterford in 1946. His father was a butcher at the Clover Meats factory and his mother ran a sweet shop. Like thousands of other Irish, the family left their home-place in search of a better life when Gilbert was just seven years-old. 

“I’m very proud of my Irish roots,” Gilbert once told Hot Press. “I love coming over. The draw is there, it’s remained intact. It’s part of me.”

While at art school, O’Sullivan played in a variety of semi-professional bands. He enjoyed a stint as the drummer in an outfit called Rick’s Blues, led by future Supertramp co-founder Rick Davies. In turn, Davies would help the young Gilbert to hone his talents on both piano and drums. It was his approach to these instruments that would come to inform O’Sullivan’s signature, percussive piano style. Gilbert also loved classic music hall performers, sparking the idiosyncratic, essentially working class image he adopted, often likened to that of a ‘Bisto Kid’ – which set him in stark contrast to the more outrageously dressed, glammed-up pop stars of the 1970s.

A move to London in 1967 put Gilbert right at the heart of the swinging sixties. Ex-pop singer-songwriter Gordon Mills took the young Irishman under his influential wing in 1970, becoming his manager, song publisher, producer and older brother-come-father figure. Having guided the careers of Tom Jones and Engelbert Humperdinck, the wealthy Mills was an enormously powerful patron. From O’Sullivan’s home-base on Mills’ huge estate, the two launched a four-year period of runaway international success. 

Gilbert broke into the UK Top Ten for the first time with the single ‘Nothing Rhymed’, a song that would also earn him his first gold disc in the Netherlands. This early success in his partnership with Mills was followed by the hits ‘Under The Blanket Go’, ‘We Will’ and the 1972 Ivor Novello Award-winning single ‘No Matter How I Try’. 

That same year, O’Sullivan would release his UK Chart-topping second album, Back To Front. It contained the single that would bring him international stardom, the heartbreaking ‘Alone Again (Naturally)’.

It is a remarkable achievement for a young songwriter to deal so maturely with complicated emotional themes like suicide, loss and the apparent rejection of religion. Gilbert O’Sullivan had only recently turned twenty-one years-old when ‘Alone Again, Naturally’ became an international smash hit and spent an astonishing six weeks at the top of the US charts. The jaunty music-hall style piano that drives the song forward is so infectious that many listeners might not have fully grasped the existential devastation and coal black humour that lies at the heart of what remains an enduring classic. The US superstar, Neil Diamond – himself the writer of mega-hit ‘Sweet Caroline’ – covered ‘Alone Again…’ on his 2010 album Dreams. It had such a “happy rhythm that you almost didn’t pay attention to the words,” he said, marvelling that “a relative kid could write such a powerful lyric.”

Interviewed ahead of the 2019 release of Gilbert O’Sullivan: The Essential Collection, O’Sullivan himself recalled that, “When [‘Alone Again…’] was recorded, we did it in a three hour session with ‘Out Of The Question’. Nobody thought that it was the one with commercial potential; everyone thought, ‘Out Of the Question’ would be the success.”

Which only goes to show how little we really know. 

The song has gone on to be interpreted by artists as diverse and prestigious as Nina Simone, Elton John and The Pet Shop Boys, and Shirley Bassey, among many more. It was controversially sampled without permission by the late rapper Biz Markie. The lawsuit that resulted from this unlicensed use of Gilbert O’Sullivan’s signature song changed the hip hop music industry, requiring that any future musical sampling be pre-approved by the original copyright owners. Most recently, Neil Sedaka paid tribute to ‘Alone Again, Naturally’ in his ‘Songs I Wish I Wrote’ series on YouTube. He was effusive in his praise: “My goodness!” he exclaimed. “What a stroke of genius. I have no idea how, at 21, Gilbert O’Sullivan wrote this song. It’s genius writing.”

Sadly, O’Sullivan’s stellar career was derailed prematurely by an infamously bitter court case between himself and Gordon Mills regarding unpaid royalties. Needless to say, right was on the side of the artist. Gilbert O’Sullivan won and the rights to all his own songs and to the recordings (a legal precedent subsequently utilised by Elton John and Sting) reverted to him. It was, however, a horrendously painful experience. Even though he diligently worked at his songwriting, O’Sullivan found much of his time over the next decade and a half taken up by gruelling legal proceedings – arguably to the detriment of his work as a recording and touring artist. But other musicians owe him: his legal victories set a number of legal precedents that continue to benefit artists across the globe.

As of 2021,Gilbert O’Sullivan continues to drive forward creatively. He has never gone more than four years without releasing an album. His latest, simply entitled Gilbert O’Sullivan, was his first album of original music to crack the Top Twenty in the UK for over 40 years. But he will be remembered forever for this extraordinary song. ‘Alone Again (Naturally)’ continues to soundtrack popular culture, popping up most recently on the soundtrack to the hit Emmy-winning Apple TV show Ted Lasso. Some songs are genuinely unforgettable. ‘Alone Again, Naturally’ is one of them.