gilbert o sullivan

328. ‘Get Down’, by Gilbert O’Sullivan

/ UK #1s blog / 8 Comments

We last heard from Gilbert O’Sullivan on ‘Clair’, crooning about a little girl he babysat for. I didn’t think much of it. Not the worst chart-topper ever, but far from a classic. But this – his second and final #1 – this is more like it, Gilbert!

Get Down, by Gilbert O’ Sullivan (his 2nd and final #1)

2 weeks, from 1st – 15th April 1973

Straight from the off we are into a stomping, glam rock groove – imagine a T. rex ‘B’-side covered by early-ABBA – and my feet are tapping. I know this song, from somewhere I cannot quite place, and I’m enjoying it. Told you once before and I won’t tell you no more… Get down, get down, get down…

Like ‘Clair’, this is another song that isn’t about what you immediately think. Any song, released in the seventies, called ‘Get Down’, should be about dancing. About ‘getting on down’, as I believe they called it back then. But no, as the lyrics progress: You’re a bad dog baby, But I still want you around…

It can’t be, surely, you wonder… He can’t have followed up his hit single about childminding with a song about how much he dislikes his dog climbing on the furniture…? Except no, the plot thickens. There are layers upon layers. Keep your hands to yourself, I’m strictly out of bounds…

Now, dogs don’t have hands. Which leads me to deduce that his isn’t singing about a frisky dog, but an amorous lady! Gilbert is sorely tempted, and this has led him to feel like a cat on a hot tin roof. (Cats, now. Is this what’s called a mixed-metaphor…?) Whatever, this is a groovy little record that shimmys in and shimmys out, that makes the listener shake their hips and drop their shoulders. A perfect pop number one.

I’m not sure I love his schtick, though, this writing songs about things but making it sound like he’s singing about other things. I have a feeling that Gilbert O’ Sullivan thought he was being clever. (One of his greatest hits collections is titled ‘The Berry Vest of…’) Plus, we do have to ignore that he is comparing a woman – a woman that he likes, no less – to a dog. Which isn’t very gentlemanly.

Gilbert O’Sullivan enjoyed thirteen Top 20 hits in the UK during the seventies and very early eighties, which is not to be sniffed at. He still writes and records: in 2018 his 19th studio album reached #20 (I love the symmetry there). In 1972, believe it or not, he was the biggest selling male solo act of the year. Worldwide…! But I can’t help feeling he’s been pretty much forgotten, though, in the grand scheme of things. Can your average man in the street name either of Gilbert O’Sullivan’s chart-topping records? The fact that he’s still not consistently on platforms such as Spotify – again, ruining my #1s Blog playlist! – is either a cause, or a symptom, of this. ‘Get Down’, at least, is worth remembering and so, if you have never heard it before, you’ll have to enjoy it on YouTube for now. And look down there – a link! How’s about that. Enjoy.

322. ‘Clair’, by Gilbert O’Sullivan

/ UK #1s blog / 23 Comments

For the first time in three hundred and twenty-two #1 singles… I find one that is not on Spotify. At least not in my ‘region’. I realise that this may be of no interest to anyone but me, but damn it if it hasn’t ruined the #1s Blog Playlist I attach at the foot of every post!

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Clair, by Gilbert O’Sullivan (his 1st of two #1s)

2 weeks, from 5th – 19th November 1972

Actually, the fact that this isn’t on Spotify might be quite telling. Spotify might be on to something… Let me explain. First up, we have whistling. Whistling in pop records rarely leads to good things. (There are notable exceptions, I will admit, but still.) Clair, The moment I met you, I swear, I felt as if something somewhere, Had happened to me… The tune is jaunty but bittersweet, the production very soft-focus. It’s easy-listening – the softest of seventies soft-rock.

Who is Clair? Must be his girlfriend, right? A guy called Gilbert writes a song about a girl called Clair. Words mean so little, When you look up and smile… Yadda-yadda-yadda… I don’t care what people say to me, You’re more than a child… Wait a second. Plot twist. Why in spite of our age difference, Do I cry, Each time I leave you…

Ah… she’s his daughter. Which kind of excuses the cutesy shlock factor. He’s written a love song to his daughter. Aw… But no. The mystery of ‘Clair’ continues to unravel. Nothing means more to me than hearing you say, I’m going to marry you, Will you marry me Uncle Ray…? What now? Who’s Uncle Ray?? I give up, and resort to Wiki.

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Where I discover that ‘Clair’ was the child of O’Sullivan’s producer, and Ray is Gilbert. He would sometimes babysit his friend/producer’s daughter. He has written a chart-topping single about a child he sometimes babysat for. Process that over the horrible harmonica solo…

It’s clever, I guess. It’s like a murder-mystery novel that keeps you guessing till the end. And it ends with a flourish – I quite like the lines in the final verse in which he’s trying to put Clair to bed: Get back into bed, Can’t you see that it’s late, No you can’t have a drink… It’s quite modern, like today’s beanie-hat wearing singer-songwriters picking lyrics out of the mundane. If Tom Walker wrote a song about babysitting, it might sound a bit like ‘Clair’.

But the final verse can’t redeem the song as a whole. It’s pretty terrible (and crucially, if you miss the bit about babysitting, it sounds super, super creepy…) And just to rubber-stamp this song’s terribleness, the real-life Clair giggles on the final note, like a doll in a horror movie. Oh Clair…

Gilbert (Raymond) O’Sullivan – I assume that he was going for a pun on ‘Gilbert & Sullivan’ with his stage name? – is an Irish singer-songwriter who had been scoring hits since a couple of years before his first #1. ‘Alone Again (Naturally)’ had been his biggest hit earlier in the year: a #3 in the UK and huge #1 on the Billboard 100. He’ll have one more chart-topper in early ’73, with a song I already know and that I can confirm is much better than this.

One final note: ‘Clair’ was at #1 for the twentieth anniversary of the UK Singles Chart. We have covered two decades’ worth of chart-topping singles, plus a diversion or two, in just over two and a half years, since my first post on Al Martino’s ‘Here in My Heart’! Well done to everyone who has been keeping up!

Listen to every other UK #1, here…