Nostalgia - It never was what it used to be.
I was shaken quite radically while leafing through one of the hi-fi mags a couple of months ago. A letter from a reader described how he had first been moved by music. He had been on holiday in Holland and wandered into a record shop with listening booths (happy days). He had put on some Koss headphones and listened to the recently release CSNY "Deja Vu". He had been trying to replicate that intimate musical experience ever since. I don't really know why I found it so sad. However there are many long clicks since "Deja Vu" came out (Youngs "Helpless" would move a man of stone)and to spend all that time attempting to recreate that fleating experience is a hopeless task. I am not sure how you could re-create it as the memory becomes distorted and embelished with time. I know I was moved to my boots by Youngs electric rumblings of "Zuma" and Ricky Lee Jones first soaring vocal riffs. However to exactly duplicate that experience would be like the search for the Holy Grail - impossible.
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That feeling is what I constantly search for...
when listening to music. Unfortunately with the steady onward flow of the years I find it becomes harder and harder to be moved like that. BUT it happened to me the other day, when I discovered Gilbert O'Sullivan's 'Alone Again (Naturally)' on this very site. It affected me very deeply and made me fall in love with music all over again.
I am quietly delighted...
...to have introduced you to that little gem, Patrick. As someone else said (Richard?), Mr O'Sullivan has been sadly underrated in this country and whilst some of his later work does sound somewhat 'easy listening' to these ears, some of his early stuff is majestic.
Easily found on youTube is Gilbert in his cloth cap and shorts singing 'We Will' which has a lyric that should never work in a song but, rather magically, is absolutely perfect. As someone else said a while back, the best song written about trying to get the kids in bed, ever.
And of all the musicians out there that I love and cherish, who'd have thought it would be Clair's Uncle Ray that I'd end up eulogising? There'd be more chance of Barnsley getting into the FA Cup semis. Oh, hang on....
Can I ask you a question, Paul?
The version of the song in the clip - is it the original or not? The programme seems to have been recorded post-1972 when the song was recorded. And after much research, it seems it was released as an EP but did not appear on an original LP. Is that right?
Also the best-of "The Berry Best Of..." seems to be re-recordings? Is that right?
What I really want to buy is the version of the song in the clip, or failing that, the original.
Can you help? And what original LPs do you think I should investigate?
Course you can...
...but think of my credibility, man! Can't you ask me questions about the Postcard bands of the early Eighties, or Sheffield electronica 1975-1979? No?
Ok, Gilbert O'Sullivan it is, then. I have to say that all I own of Gilbert's recorded output is the appallingly-named 'Berry Vest'- but a quick perusal of the inlay would suggest (as I thought although you had me worried) that they are indeed the original recordings - leaving aside the odd harmless remix. I would start there, because things do get a bit MOR after about 1973.
Listening to the YouTube clip, he's either miming to the original, or it is so close to the original as to be pretty much indistinguishable. If it's not the same - you won't be disappointed by the original, believe me.
If I were you, I'd start with the Berry Vest and see what you thought - as far as the originals go, I'd start early (cloth cap era) and stop when it gets too saccharine for your taste. If you get past 'Ooh Wakka Doo Wakka Day' you've a stronger constitution than I have.
Really, I'd be happy with 'Alone Again (Naturally)', 'We Will' (his real masterpiece) and 'Nothing Rhymed'.
Hope that helps!
Thanks...
I have a feeling that not all of Gilbert's output is going to be as good as THAT SONG. I still have nightmares about the 'Get Down' TOTP clip in which Pan's People try to seduce dogs.
'Nothing Rhymed'
That's another one for you. My missus swears by him and on a song like that how could she be wrong.
Holland?
Is it possible he may have been in a coffee shop right before entering the hi-fi store?
Put the Wacky in Backy
Yes, In my innocence I had missed that connection. CSNY never cared for drugs(legal ones that is).
Alone Again Naturally...
...have to say I have always liked that song. Don't have time for stuff like 'Clair' or 'Get Down' but that one stands up well.
Whilst we are at it.....
Is it time to recalibrate Alvin Stardust. I am sure it can only be time.
(I still think Gilbert O'S is shite, but accept that Alone Again has the structure for being quite a good song. Just not in his hands. Try Lori Cullens version. Not, however, Michael weston Kings, which makes Gilberts sound jolly.)
Phew
Thank you, Ret. I thought I had gone mad. Although I naturally - or natchralee - respect Patrick's and others' enthusiasm for "Alone Again...", I don't have it in me to share it, I just don't.
Take a decent, quite sensitive lyric about loneliness and what does everybody's favourite ur-Roy Keane do with it? Set it to a Mrs Mills end-of-the-pier shake a leg and wave your chip bag in the air melody. The result: about as genuinely moving as Ken Dodd's mighty "Tears".
Sanity Prevails
Thanks, we appear to have travelled a long way in to some parralel universe. At least now we are back in the real one once again. I wont comment on Gilbert.
Stop being so cynical
Open you minds you cynical sods. Next you'll be saying you don't like Girls Aloud.