Two Big Egos in a Small Car
A passionately laid back overview of the arts and culture scene in York and Harrogate with observations on journalism. This podcast is hosted by Charles Hutchinson and Graham Chalmers and regular guests.
Two Big Egos in a Small Car
Interview Special with Gilbert O'Sullivan as he celebrates 60 years in music and releases a new album, On the Record
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Graham and Charles chat to pop legend Gilbert O'Sullivan as he prepares to release his new album, On the Record and celebrates sixty years in music.
About Gilbert O'Sullivan:
He was the superstar who topped the UK and US single charts in the 70s with songs of endearing tunefulness, unabashed sentiment and existentialist musings. Today, Irish singer-songwriter Gilbert O’Sullivan continues to be regarded with tremendous affection and his songs remain well-loved around the world.
Gilbert O’Sullivan was born Raymond Edward O’Sullivan in 1946 in Ireland. He moved to Swindon, England with his family aged 7 and after a formal education became a student at Swindon Art College, specializing in graphic design.
But he had another love – music – and after forming and joining local bands as a drummer/vocalist, he started writing his own songs, heavily influenced by The Beatles as writers and Bob Dylan as a performer. Calling himself Gilbert, with a very distinctive image, two singles released by CBS Records and one with the Major Minor label, got little attention. Undeterred, he sent a demo tape to Gordon Mills, the man behind Tom Jones and Engelbert Humperdinck, who impressed with his song writing, became his manager. The result was his first single on the MAM label, Nothing Rhymed, became a UK Top Ten hit in 1970.
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Just waiting for my colleague Charles Hutchinson to join us as well, Gilbert. It's great to see you. You're looking well and your hair is spectacular. I'm really impressed. I'm actually ...that's amazing. Whatever you're having, I want that as well. I can't believe how busy you are. Well, this will be your third album in four years, which is phenomenal.
Gilbert O'SullivanI mean, I'm enjoying what I do. I love the the joy of the craft of songwriting, which leads to making records, which release the records being released. That's pretty much what goes on. I'm happy enough.
Speaker 1Here's Charles. Good afternoon, Graham, and good afternoon to Gilbert O'Sullivan. It is our great pleasure to welcome Gilbert to Two Big Egos in a Small Car. And this uh is a true pleasure. I uh have um bought Gilbert O'Sullivan albums from a very young age, and my first collection of albums were Gilbert O'Sullivan albums, uh, going way back to when I was 11, 12, 13. I even bought a Gilbert single when I went on holiday um on a skiing trip, and I brought an Italian version of a Gilbert O'Sullivan single going back all those years. It really is a spoken to Gilbert over the years, and I think you have done so likewise, Graham. But this is the first time for Gilbert on our podcast. Um and the reason, Gilbert, that we're interviewing you upcoming is Gilbert O'Sullivan celebrating sixty years of music. This is a tour uh running from uh September the 1st all the way through to November the 8th. And the dates of interest uh locally to us are the Grand Opera House in York, which is the 22nd of September. There's also St. George's Hall in Bradford, the 27th of September. Uh there's Cast in Doncaster, October the 1st, 2026, and then uh in Graham's Patch, Harrogate Theatre, a beautiful venue to play, Gilbert, that is, on the 30th of October. So welcome, uh Gilbert. And uh this is um 60 years, I remember, because I interviewed you only recently to go piece in the York Press, and my reaction was to say 60 years, where's it's all gone? And I liked your comment that you know you look forward, not backwards. I think that's really interesting, actually, that you do that.
Gilbert O'SullivanYeah, I mean, I you know I appreciate what's gone on in the past, but uh, but it's it's all about the future for me. So it doesn't have to be big steps, small steps, just a good attitude towards what's what could lie ahead, what may lie ahead. That's more exciting than dwelling on the past.
CharlesAbsolutely. And and that is um that writing philosophy, of course, leads to the a new album that's coming out, uh, On the Record. Um, tell us, Gilbert, the story behind how uh that title was chosen. I could only find, strangely enough, uh a recording of uh of an Enoch Powell speech, uh which had been made into an album called On the Record. That was the only one I could find. And when I interviewed you before, I didn't even I didn't even know it then, but since then I've found that out.
Gilbert O'SullivanNot exactly. I like being associated with that.
CharlesThat's a surprise.
Gilbert O'SullivanYou're telling me, you're telling me. I don't know the titles. I mean, well, I had my daughters, manager, record company all putting their uh thoughts on what the cover should be, and it uh even what I had suggested got dismissed. So we ended up in the end, it just became on the record. So simple as that.
CharlesIt's amazing that actually it's not been used by a musician before because it's just a fantastically punning title, isn't it?
Gilbert O'SullivanI liked Life and the Old Dog, yeah, but that didn't go down well.
GrahamYeah, well, I've heard one great song off the album already, Growing Old Disgracefully. Yes. And I thought if this had come out in 1972 or 73 or 74, you would have said, yeah, that's some really good global solvent track. So the the the the standard of your craftsmanship and songwriting is still as high as it ever was.
Gilbert O'SullivanYeah, but that's the key factor in what I try to do, live by in terms of work. The work that I think is it isn't rocket science, but to come up with a good melody is important. That will lead you to come out coming up with hopefully a good lyric and stuff. So that that's that's what involves me. That's what the love of the craft that I have that allows me to think ahead rather than dwell in the past and stuff.
Speaker 2Yeah, you remind me of like elements of Paul McCartney, and I've been a huge Paul McCartney fan since since I was nine years old, and that you make doing a coming up with a great pop song sound really easy. It all sounds completely effortless. When you hear things like What's on a Kiss now or Hello Yeah, naturally, you think that's obviously just popped in Gilbert's head from nowhere, complete and fully formed, because it's so easygoing and so free-flowing. But I'm guessing it maybe it wasn't quite as straightforward as that.
Gilbert O'SullivanNo, well, it's it I was in a writing period at the time that I wrote that song. I was, I was because a new single was was being planned. In the early 70s, you didn't put out albums, you put out singles continuously. So a new single was was being uh looked upon as due. So I was in the middle of a writing process, writing a few songs. Two of the songs I was writing on a particular day was out of the question, and the other one was alone again. I finished both, I liked them both. I didn't think one was any better or worse than the other. I was happy with them. And we went to the studio in the next few days. Gordon Mills, my manager, the record producer, and stuff. They all liked out of the question. They thought that should be the single. But uh by the end of the evening, Gordon said, you know, Alone Again may not be the most commercial, but it's a better song. So let's go with that. So I think that that's that's the nun of pretty much what to play it.
Speaker 1Gilbert, uh, that song uh has now been covered by at least 88 artists at the last count. And C Mat, uh a young talent, of course, uh just played at Scarborough earlier this uh summer, has described Alone Again Naturally as the greatest Irish song ever made. And there's some stellar competition that that is up against. I mean, that is one heck of a compliment, isn't it?
Gilbert O'SullivanYeah, it's it's you know I'm not gonna not going to uh you know question it. I mean, it's nice that C Map thinks that way. I mean, I I've talked to her. We we got her to come on stage two years ago in Glastonbury. All right. I was in the acoustic stage, so we brought her on to sing nothing rhymes with me. That was before the big break for her, which came last year, this year. Yes. So uh she's a very talented songwriter, so it's nice to hear her good comments and stuff. So yeah.
Speaker 1Now, when up against uh such a history of great songwriting, when it comes to doing new albums, Gilbert, you've considered 21 albums. Uh this uh you know, 21 albums now. Um, and the making of this latest album, uh, I think you worked again with the same producer that actually I think you've done this. Is the third album I think you've done with him now? One of which would be the second, but the the one the first the one in between was uh revisit of some of the celebrated songs of yours, wasn't it? Yeah. So it's the second origin, second studio original set of songs with him. Um, when it came to approaching that, um, to make it sort of different from the the the past time, what were you looking to bring out this time in the songwriting that you hadn't done before?
Gilbert O'SullivanI think well, what was interesting was the reason I've always used different producers because I always felt that the singer's the same, the writer's the same, if the producer is the same, why not have a different producer who'll bring something different to the table? So so so working with Andy on the last album was really real. I liked working with him, and I like the musicians he chose. I let the producer choose the musicians because I think a closer feel to it. So that was all set in place and stuff. And and then I just interestingly enough, a couple of the songs have a kind of 60s feel about them and stuff. So I kind of like that. That's come through the guitar work and stuff. Yeah, I mean, it's it's combination, there's fast, there's slow, there's a humorous, there's light hearted, there's serious. It's all kind of in there. Um, and I think that that the sound wise is not that much different, but I think the song, the songs make the difference. For example, we have a song called Is That You, which is with a duet with uh Andrea Korr on the chorus. And I don't play piano on that. The song was written on piano. I I can play the piano in a folk style. I can't do piano vorte, but I can play a chord like a guitar on the piano. So when we recorded uh this song, Is That You, uh, we took my piano off and just had the two acoustic guitars. So it's kind of nice to have a track without me actually playing the piano. So I'm happy about that. So uh, all in all, it's been a good project.
Speaker 2Graham. I was a bit too young to get your 1971 Debbie all himself with uh nothing rhymed and matrimony. When you sounded a little bit like a a less dark and more sweet Randy Newman, and you had that big flat cap. And by the time I got into you in 1973, thanks to my dad, you were getting a bit funkier and more soulful, the flat cap had gone, the big perm was there and it's still there, and you had the tank top. And the album that really got me was I'm a writer, not a fighter, because my dad's high-five system, he only had about 20 records, including Bridgeover Troll Water album, Abbey Road, Jeff Love's Big War theme, big war movie themes, and I'm a writer, not a fighter, that green sleeve with your picture with your hair. And I played that album to death over and over again with get down on it and absolutely loved it. Were you consciously trying to get away from your original flat cap look from the early 70s by the time you got to 73?
Gilbert O'SullivanNo, I didn't see I didn't I didn't make any association between the image and this the song. Songcraft is serious, the image is it's it's good to have a bit of light. But by the way, I never had a perm. I never in my life had a lot of you're corrected here. I I always admire someone's big hair. No, but look, in the early 70s, particularly when I came to the 1967, created this image of Charlie Chaplin jacket pudding basin haircut. I I unlike everybody else's hair at that time, everybody's hair was long. James Taylor looked, everybody had a long hair. I was a freak because I had a pudding basin haircut and a cap. Now, today I'm the most trendiest set of ever. If you look at every piece of the team, I look the trendiest artists around. Look at the footballers you see on there, they all have their bloody heads shaved in the way that I do. But I had a you know, I I got into a lot of trouble with it. I had trouble with girlfriends because of how I looked at it. And record recognition didn't like the image and stuff, and uh, but I persevered with it. It's uh but write down the fight. It's nice that you like that album. It's uh yeah, who knows, perhaps fantastic.
Speaker 2Grill.
Gilbert O'SullivanWho's who's uh who knows, perhaps Baby? Who knows? Perhaps maybe is a track I like off that. Yeah, and there's a we do a very one song on that album where Peaceful Waters Flow. I was never really happy with the the final mix of that because in those days you didn't spend months in the studio, you you spent a couple of weeks and the album is over, done. No, no overdubbing and stuff. So I we do peaceful waters on uh on on stage, but we do it different to how it is on the record. So I would have taken that back in and and worked on it again.
Speaker 1That's an interesting thought, Gilbert. About um it I mean it's said that when artists are painting, the biggest decision to make is when to stop that painting and to move on to another one when you feel it's complete. And I wonder, you know, when it comes to recording songs, I mean, the stories behind Tears for Fears taking six days even to decide on one drum beat or something. I mean, I'm exaggerating it. But how you sense that a a song is complete and indeed a recording is complete?
Gilbert O'SullivanWell, I mean, easy with the song, I mean that's all down to me. Nobody else is involved. Right. I just I don't go to a pub and there's a piano and I just play a new song I've written already. Yeah, I don't like that. Uh McCartney would do that, he'd be he could be anywhere and he'll play for everybody. But um I I just um I mean look, it it's uh it's just the melody thing. It's it's you know, coming up with a good melody is hard. But if you come up with it, it's it's it's fantastic. And a good melody will never date. Everyone had that trunk thing where you have a good melody, trunk it. You can trump a m trunk a melody because it won't date, but if you finish a lyric and you don't use it and to bring it out of the box a couple of years later, it's probably a bit dated. You may have been taught writing about things that were going on at that time. But as I say, the beauty of what I do is come up with a good melody, and then when it's time to make an album, you've got your melodies, work on your lyrics, and away you go.
Speaker 2No matter how cool something is or how fashionable it is, in the end, all that lasts is good songs. Good songs never truly go away, all the rest falls away, all this sort of like fashionable stuff just doesn't last.
Gilbert O'SullivanYeah, I agree. I mean, uh the second the second single I had after nothing round. Here's what you would imagine after nothing round is being a big success, you'd think there'd be a boardroom meeting to decide what the next single should be. Yeah, it should be like nothing round. With me, it was Gordon Mill said to me, What have you got? And I said, Well, I've got this song called Underneath the Blanket Girl, it's just a bit rocky. Yes. I said, I fancy doing that. And uh she said, Okay, we recorded. I actually brought Rick Davis uh from Super Champ played.
Speaker 2Oh, yeah, oh yeah.
Gilbert O'SullivanAnd uh, but here's here's the thing, it was a minor success, so I could have been a one-hint wonder in many people's eyes after nothing around. But I was I did a big interview with Ray Ray Connolly from the Evening Standard, I think, in London. And he said, How did you write that song about masturbation?
Speaker 1You're too busy playing the piano, Gilbert. On piano, um, I think it's interesting uh when one looks at you know performances where Elton John at the piano, uh yourself at the piano, um uh Tori Amos at the piano. Um how the piano uh is important in performance, um, Billy Joel at the piano, whatever. How how that instrument, it's different from a singer performing with the guitar. What does that feel like on stage, being with a piano, how you use it, where you place it, where you place yourself on the stage behind it, etc. All those factors. Tell me about that.
Gilbert O'SullivanWell, the first thing is that I all my writing is done on a grand piano, Bedstein grand piano. Yeah, but all my performing is done on an RD electronic keyboard called an RD1000. I have I have eight of them because they're very rare. There's an RD 1000, four, and there's an RD5000. Yeah, they're supposed to be better, but I don't like them. So I have all these graphs, and the great thing about me in terms of with my piano, I face the audience. The trouble with the grand piano, when you see Billy or you see Elton, they're sitting on the side, they'll look into the side.
Speaker 1Yes, exactly.
Gilbert O'SullivanI don't have that problem because the keyboard I have is is fixed on me sitting facing the audience. So I have a good keyboard that is very good close to the piano sound I want. It also has an electric piano sound which I use. So that that works out really well for me. So that's the importance of I wouldn't like to be on stage with a grand piano where you had to kind of look. You're static. As you say, with with a guitar player, you can move around. In fact, you can you know with with with the trouble with a grand piano is that you're you're stuck and you have to kind of you can't get off the piano. Well, you can, but Elton gets up, has a little look, and then goes back to the piano and stuff. It's quite static. But um yeah. But uh, but it's but I'm lucky in the respect. If you saw my concert, you'd realize what I mean.
CharlesYeah, I think it's when we spoke earlier this year, you were mentioning that some some of these um keyboards are are dotted around different places in the world. So uh it's not a case of how piano will travel on uh on on an airplane, etc. Actually, it's sensible to have these placed in different places because it helps you to uh be confident about you know going and performing on them, knowing that they'll be well tuned, etc. etc.
Gilbert O'SullivanYeah, absolutely, absolutely. And you can bring, you know, you can't take these things on an airplane easily.
CharlesNo.
Gilbert O'SullivanI mean it's so it's good. We have one in America, we have one in Spain, we have one in Austria, we we have them around. So that what we do is we continuously look online because every other week or every other month an RD comes up for sale. So we I check with my brother Kevin. Should we get it? We check it out. But I have quite a few of them.
GrahamYeah, yeah. And just as a matter of interest, um as a piano player, uh, are there particular piano players that you admire as well?
Gilbert O'SullivanYeah, Nina Simon, of course I do. Uh great piano player. Um, Randy Newman, I appreciate it, and he's a good piano player. They're classically trained and stuff. I'm very uh I'm I'm very amateur piano player, I'm very rhythmic. My left hand is like a drum, keeps the rhythm. My right hand does the chords. I'm a bit like the Bruce Wells of the piano stuff. Just rhythm and stuff.
Speaker 1Yes.
Gilbert O'SullivanUh so it's important, but it's you know, the great kind of you know, people like Tori Amos, very good piano there, Billy Joe, yeah, great kind of way. But um, yeah, they're out there. Right.
Speaker 2As a songwriter, you're very much a storyteller, and nobody tells stories like the Irish. So do you think part of your approach comes from your Irish roots?
Gilbert O'SullivanI have no idea. I left Ireland when I was seven. Proud I'm proud of my roots. Yeah, no question about that. But no, I don't think so. I think all my background musically stems from from uh growing up in Swindon, down you know in in the UK. That's where it all started for me. But there maybe is something there, who knows? Uh it's in the blood, it's uh uh it could well be there.
Speaker 2I'm happy with it. Your lyrics are yeah, sorry, your lyrics are often quite down to earth. It's it they they they flow easily and they've got a lot of character, but there's very little pretension about them. And going back in time to songs like uh Permissive Twit, you you were never someone to fall in love with like hippie ideals or trendy ways of thinking. You were everything seems a bit domestic and working class and down to earth. Is that a fair assessment, you think?
Gilbert O'SullivanYeah, I think so. That's pretty much how what we were, what we are within us and stuff. Um, I mean in terms of songwriting, I like to feel that that I have a good sense of humor.
Speaker 1Yeah.
Gilbert O'SullivanIf you were to say to me, would you sum up your songwriting? I would sum it up this way. Uh I have a song called um I forget the title, but the verse goes, I want to give her my heart, but as the doctor observed, what would you do with it? So that's a good connection of my lyrics. I think that that in other words, to twist things, to spike milligan-esque. I have a spike milligan-esque. Because I used to, when I was at art school, I used to do a lot of poetry, a lot of a lot of little I love spy milligan. So I have a lot of little little sort of um poems of his that I've written based on uh based on his work. So I think that that elements of that come into my lyrics, I think.
CharlesYou mentioned to me as well, too. Um Graham, I'll come back to my point later. How did you come up with ooh wackadoo wackade?
GrahamThat's such an amazing phrase.
Gilbert O'SullivanMusical, it's out there in music hall. Wackadoo. Isn't it? You can listen to Bill Haley in the comments, they do wackadoo, wackado, wakadoo. So it's out there. It's a music hall thing, and and I like music hall. Music hall is quite traditional. There's an element of that in me. I like I listen to albums from that period, music hall albums, because the melodies are really strong. The lyrics don't do a lot for me. So you're always searching for melody to be influenced by it to help you write a melody. So music hall is there, so I think whackado, who were too, stems from that. I used to get criticized for British used to have a go at me about that, but I actually enjoy singing it now, and the audience tend to sing along with it, so it's kind of fun.
GrahamWell, yeah, rock and roll was full of fun. So, you know, to to criticize you when all you're doing is really rock and roll is bizarre.
CharlesWell, wham, what was it? Wham, who was it? Uh um sweet song Wham Wham Bam, thank you, ma'am, David Boeing. Oh, yeah, there you go. Oh, yes, or any lyric by Mark Bolan. Um, but one of the things you mentioned to me when we spoke earlier this summer was also how um uh the lyrics can read uh like a series of newspaper headlines, and you use nothing rhymed as an example of that. Tell us more about that. Um just uh take that point further, if you would.
Gilbert O'SullivanWell, I I mean it's it's it's people say, How do you write your lyrics? I tend to incorporate things going on in the world.
CharlesYeah.
Gilbert O'SullivanFor example, interestingly enough, um we have on the the album, the last album, not the live one, not the live song, but the one the first album with Andy.
CharlesYeah.
Gilbert O'SullivanAnd the Gilbert Driven. Driven, yeah, driven. There's um a song called Take Love on that. Um And uh and there's a verse in that that ends the thing, take hope, what have you got? Part of what we're part of is gone to pot. If it isn't fires, it's a title surge. Stop there. Look at the look on the TV radio today. So I'm picking up on things that I read about, I hear about, and that and I stick them in subtly. That song, Take Love, isn't about that subject matter, but it's incorporated into it. And I like that aspect of lyric writings. It's a common denominator which can be the hook line, but you can veer off and introduce subjects that affect you, affect us all, and uh incorporate them in your lyric of a particular song. It doesn't have to be about that, but having it in there subtly, as it was with nothing rhyme. I mean, uh, to have nothing rhyme.
CharlesWe're tuned into that, Gilbert, by the way that when we have television sets on, and it might even be the volume dam, but we see a ticket tape of headlines running across the bottom, and it can just be six or seven memorable words. Well, this week, for example, if it if you suddenly looked up and it said Dolly Parton dies aged 80, you would you immediately you emotionally respond to that headline, and a lyric actually can have that same effect. You know, you you can concertina that concentration of thought into a headline type line, and when it becomes uh in a song, it becomes more impactful uh by being used there, I think.
Gilbert O'SullivanYeah, I do it because I like to have that aspect of it. And I of course, when it's out there, people like yourself, if they pick up on that, that's nice. I'm you know, I'm happy about that. It it make it's straight straightforward songs are still there. If you're a prolific writer, you're writing you know lighter songs as well as heavier stuff, but it's uh but I'll I I'll always involve what's going on in the world in some respect. I'll always sneak it in there somehow. It doesn't have to be spotted, but uh, but it'll be done by me.
GrahamRight. You've had six number ones in the UK, an Ivor Novella Award. You've success in America, you've played the Hollywood Bowl. It's been a great career, but there have been moments when you weren't in fashion. Has that aspect of your career ever affected your morale? Have you ever felt a bit low at times, or are you just someone committed to writing songs and that's it?
Gilbert O'SullivanYeah, the commitment is there. That helps me through those periods when you know you're you get involved in the lack of support for when you put something out. Uh there is that criticism. The critics are always having to go at you because of how you looked. No question about that. I don't regret that. I don't regret the image. I'm proud of the image. Um to hell with people who didn't like it. But but but it's always the songs and stuff. And so I mean, it's um, you know, I it's pick up, pick up what say what you're getting and pick up. I lost I lost track there. I'm just what did you say?
CharlesYeah, it's it's just w what whether those low moments in the career actually affected your morale and your ability to keep on writing new songs and keep on going, whether you ever got to the point where you felt like, oh, this is I'm a waste of my time. Did you ever feel it that at any point?
Gilbert O'SullivanNo, never, never. I always loved the craft of as long as I had the ability, the ability to write what I thought were good songs, what I believed were good songs, that got me through low spells. No, there's no doubt you have uh, you know, ifs and buts, and but I have a good family background, my wife, the two children and stuff. Life's been good to us. Illnesses uh we've kept serious illness away. That's important. So I I'm I'm you know in a in a pretty happy place despite the ups and downs that that uh or the downs that do occur.
CharlesMy final question, Gilbert, is what's in the kiss?
Gilbert O'SullivanOh, sorry.
CharlesIt's such a lovely image. What's in the kiss?
Gilbert O'SullivanHave you ever wondered just what it is? Wow, yeah. I don't know. Steve Wright used to love that song, so I like to remember Steve, bless him. Um I know it's a good pop song, uh Charles. It's a good song. I mean, it's it's um uh what more can I say? I was happy with it, good melody, nice middle eight.
GrahamYeah, it's it's a perfect little gem, you know. It's up there with a great buddy Holly song or any other great pop and roll, rock and roll tune from any era.
Gilbert O'SullivanNo, I get people when you play yeah, people join in with it when I sing on stage, and so it's kind of I have those few songs that that people react to and join in.
GrahamAre there any of the great songs that you like playing?
Gilbert O'SullivanGo, Greg, go.
Speaker 2Are there any of Gilbert's great songs that he particularly enjoys playing when he's playing live?
Gilbert O'SullivanAre you asking me? Are you asking?
Speaker 2I'm not gonna ask Charles, he never plays them live.
Gilbert O'SullivanSo repeat the question, what?
GrahamAre there any of the great songs? There's so many great songs that you've written over the years. Are there any you particularly enjoy playing live?
Gilbert O'SullivanOh, yeah, very much so. Um Miss Miss My Love Today is a special favorite, which touches on the death of John Lennon and Elvis and stuff. So I'm proud of that song. It's just a foot tap and a keyboard. Um you know, I I have people say, What's your favorite song? Very often my favorite songs are songs that weren't hits, but they mean a lot to me. A song called Um All They Wanted to Say was written about an aspect of 9-11. And I have an email today from a woman who saw the last concert I did some a while back, and I didn't perform it because I sometimes do it. She was really upset because it's her favorite song. Um but that song was written about an aspect of 9-11. And whenever we do it in America, it it gets a great reaction. I picked on an aspect of 9-11 that wasn't all about the planes hitting the building. Mine was people in an airplane that knew they were going to die because it was going to crash, and all they were doing was going on their phones to say, I love you. So the importance of that phrase for those people that came to me in a song. So I like songs like that are really special. Back in the 60s, I wrote a song called I Wish I Could Cry after the death of Robert Kennedy. Robert Kennedy, we all thought was going to be the next president, no question about that. Our generation.
GrahamYeah.
Gilbert O'SullivanSo yeah, I went to we all went to the embassy to sign a condolence and stuff. And I love that song. I've I've recorded it uh again because it was a special song for me. I sometimes perform that. There's another song, It's Easy to See When You're Blind. It's a really good lyric. So things like that are what are special to me. They're not songs that were necessarily successes on the market, but they're songs that mean a lot to me for the craft of song.
CharlesSo, Gilbert, uh half an hour is up, and I thank you so much for joining us today. And uh so looking forward to seeing the show, probably in my case in York, but it could yet be in Harrigood as well. But enjoy the tour, 60 years of music. And uh on behalf of myself and Graham, thank you for joining us on Two Big Egos in a small car.
GrahamOkay, bye for now. Bye-bye, bye-bye. Thank you.
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