BBC Home


Accessibility help
Text only
BBC Homepage
BBC Music

Listen Live.

 Full Schedule
-

Radio 2
Sold on Song
What's On
Search For A Songwriter
Songs A-Z
Artists A-Z
Songwriting Guides
Genres
Glossary
Newsletter

Listen
The former Raymond O’Sullivan had hit the top 10 in 1970 with “Nothing Rhymed” - a distinctive brand of melodic, yet maudlin, piano ballad. Its startlingly self-searching lyrics were only eclipsed by a

Gilbert O'Sullivan Song facts

Composer
Gilbert O'Sullivan

Genre
Pop

Year of Release
1972

UK Chart Position
3 frankly ill-thought out image of flat cap and pudding-basin haircut. Yet this was nothing compared to the following year’s “Alone Again (Naturally)”. Beginning with the singer declaring his intent to commit suicide, it goes on to list the ways in which life has a way of kicking him when he’s down!
Having been jilted the narrator opines that he’s just another of life’s losers finally detailing the bleakness of his parents’ deaths. If this seems a tad self-pitying O’Sullivan sweetens the song with not only a gorgeous melody but an unspoken knowledge that such over-the-top cynicism cannot, surely, be without an amount of black humour. By the time of his #1 “Clair” the mix had become too saccharine, but for a short while, this astonishing piece of popular existentialism had us all guessing.

Listen to Gilbert O'Sullivan on songwriting

Gilbert O'Sullivan

Gilbert O'Sullivan talks about the business of writing lyrics.
 
Audio help
Other versions

Listen to Sarah Vaughan

  Listen to Sarah Vaughan's cover of Alone Again (Naturally).

The most beautiful sound, and the most emotional lyrics I have ever heard.
James Turner
READ MORE COMMENTS...
Make a comment

Your Name and Town/City:


Your Message: