Into Music Review: Gilbert O’Sullivan – On The Record
When the conversation turns to classic singer-songwriters of the 1970s, the mind tends to drift west, towards Laurel Canyon, sun-baked harmonies and the soft-focus mythology of California. But Britain and Ireland had their own remarkable songwriting fraternity, and they weren’t short on style, either. Leo Sayer, David Essex, Steve Harley and Gilbert O’Sullivan fashioned pop songs every bit as sharp, strange and enduring as their American counterparts. And, let’s be honest, they had better hair too.
Since his debut in 1967, O’Sullivan has amassed sixteen UK Top forty records, including six number ones, with enduring classics such as Claire, Get Down and the US chart-topper Alone Again (Naturally), which garnered three Grammy nominations. Twenty-one studio albums in, and with three Ivor Novello Awards to his name, including Songwriter of the Year, he remains a formidable talent. His last three albums have all reached the UK Top 30. Not bad for a man who has never shown the slightest interest in chasing fashion.
On The Record finds him doing what he has always done best: writing his own songs, trusting his own instincts and proving, yet again, that a great melody doesn’t come with an expiry date. Across thirteen tracks, there’s a generous balance of classic pop craft and fresh production, with playful, up-tempo numbers sitting happily alongside ballads of startling emotional depth.
The livelier songs make an immediate impression. Opener It’s Me, along with Our Love Is Gonna Grow and Wait, nods affectionately towards Steely Dan & classic era Fleetwood Mac. These are beautifully built songs, full of musical detail and played with real aplomb. The arrangements are assured, the musicianship immaculate, and the melodies possess that rare quality of sounding instantly familiar without ever feeling second-hand.
But it’s arguably in the ballads that O’Sullivan’s particular magic comes most fully into focus. Few songwriters can make this kind of music sound so natural, so unforced. As he approaches his ninth decade, there’s a richness and assurance in his singing that feels especially moving. Mortality occasionally enters the room, but it never takes over. There’s no self-pity here, only perspective, mischief and a quietly grateful sense of the time we’re given.
O’Sullivan is very much his own man, of course, but the quality of some of these songs is best conveyed by saying that they could stand comfortably alongside the finest ballads McCartney or Billy Joel produced in their prime.
I Suppose sounds as though it has wandered in from a long-lost Abbey Road session. It’s gorgeous McCartney-esque melody & vocal is embellished by guitar lines that evoke George Harrison at his most understated and tender. It’s an absolute delight: warm, melodic and beautifully unhurried.
Then comes Growing Old Disgracefully, a song that wouldn’t have sounded out of place on Joel’s The Stranger or 52nd Street. The strings are achingly beautiful, lending the arrangement an understated cinematic sweep, while the lyric delivers a gloriously defiant riposte to the notion that getting older means becoming sensible.
“Growing old disgracefully is manna from above…”
From there, O’Sullivan takes aim at anyone who would presume to dictate how he should dress, behave or conduct himself, concluding that a pink suit might be just the ticket. It’s funny, rebellious and quietly life-affirming. More than that, it reminds us that beneath the immaculate songwriting sits a distinctly individual spirit. Growing older, Gilbert suggests, needn’t mean growing dull.
Minus Is A Plus With You continues the run of outstanding ballads, drawing on the melodic instincts of Bacharach & David without ever surrendering O’Sullivan’s unmistakable identity. The strings are once again to die for, but it’s the song itself that carries the day. This is songwriting built on melody, harmony and emotional intelligence, not studio smoke and mirrors.
There’s plenty of variety elsewhere. I Must Be Going is complex, layered and faintly mysterious, conjuring memories of 10cc at their peak, when pop could be exquisitely tuneful and gloriously eccentric in the same breath.
And then there’s Is That You, perhaps the album’s most revealing moment. Just O’Sullivan’s voice, an acoustic guitar and Andrea Corr joining him in song. No grand arrangement, no elaborate production, nothing to hide behind. Its simplicity is its genius. When a songwriter can hold your attention with so little, you know you’re listening to someone who understands the very heart of the craft.
The album closes with See Us Gone, a quietly devastating reflection on mortality that expands its gaze from the personal to the universal. It’s the sort of song that could have been written in any of the past seven decades and still feel painfully relevant today. Its concerns reach beyond our own limited time on earth to the uncertain world we’re leaving behind.
As a male choir — with a distinctly Welsh-sounding character — swells around him, the song gathers depth and gravitas. The closing lyric wonders whether, if the worst came to the worst, we might one day fear seeing us all gone. It’s a sobering thought, delivered without bombast or easy answers. Just a beautifully judged song that lingers long after the final note.
On The Record is both a testament to Gilbert O’Sullivan’s enduring gifts and a timely reminder that great songwriting has no sell-by date. There’s wit here, elegance, melancholy and a healthy disregard for convention. Most of all, there’s the unmistakable pleasure of hearing a master craftsman still finding new things to say, and new ways to say them.
Age, it turns out, really is just a number.
Oh, and he still has the coolest hair.
To order the album, head to the Gilbert O’Sullivan website here.
Brian Davidson @weepeople1