Alone Again Hopefully Source: Jackie Writer: Unknown Date: 1973 Although success means that Gilbert O'Sullivan could buy a mansion sized house tomorrow, he isn't keen to give up his cottage at Weybridge in Surrey. "Here I can relax completely," he told me.  "It usually brings me down to earth after living in great hotels around the world.  In fact, the first thing I do when I get back is to get down on my hands and knees and scrub the floor! Gilbert never forgets the hard struggle he's had to succeed - his was no overnight success story.  he still has one endearing hangover from his period of poverty when he could hardly afford to buy the paper to write out his songs. "The first thing I do when I get into a hotel room is to take all the stationary out.  I always search for the notepaper.  As you can see I'm writing these songs at the moment on George V, Paris, notepaper.  That's a very grand hotel.  It's nice paper, isn't it?  Old habits die hard! Gilbert prefers to be on his own at home. "I've got only one close friend and I've known him since my days at art college in Swindon.  His name is Robert Hook and he's an art director now.  Other friends are just through the business really. "I've got girl friends but no one particular girl.  I'm very selfish I suppose, but I'll ring a girl up and ask her out to dinner and be very annoyed if she has already made arrangements to do something else. "I just like someone very, very quiet, and if I take a girl out I don't like to be recognised.  I would far rather I'm treated just like anyone else.  I used to eat locally because it was nice like that.  But then the last time I went in the manager knew who I was that was that.  Gordon Mills, my manager, says I shouldn't cringe, but I hate getting special treatment. So is Gilbert likely to settle down with one girl? "Well for one thin I'm very self sufficient, I've never had a housekeeper to come in and clean up the place.  That's what frightens me about marriage.  I'm very independent and very choosy about little things. "For example, I'm fussy about the way my eggs are done.  I liked them boiled for exactly four minutes.  It would be terrible for some poor girl, wouldn't it?  Still I suppose it's something I've inherited.  My father didn't get married until he was thirty.  I suppose you have to accept things when you lose your independence. "The thought of anyone at all being here all the time when I'm here worries me.  Probably I'll change my views in the next couple of years.  I'm like I am now because of the enthusiasm I have for my work." Success also takes up a lot of Gilbert's time:  "For example eight, nine, ten months ago I was mostly successful in Britain.  I'd be doing TV and radio etcetera for three months and that was that.  Just pushing one tune at a time, but now when a record starts to slide here, it's going up in America and so instead of being out in the garden digging I have to get on a jet and go to America." When Gilbert was working his way up as a composer he used to go over at weekends to his manager, Gordon Mills' house and often ended up babysitting in return for the encouragement and much needed meals Gordon and his wife gave him.  That's how one of his biggest hits "Clair" came about. "She's Gordon's daughter, and a lovely little girl.  I wrote that song a much for them as I did for anything else., my way of saying 'thank you', because they were so good to me, they treated me like a son. "I like to write songs about situations.  For example I'm writing one now that will probably go like this: 'Good...something...something...I hear that your brother was caught for speeding, and was let off with a warning.'  I like the idea of just writing about normal everyday things. "I always write far more verses than I need for the finished song.  It's very satisfying, it's like if you wrote two books - the second one about the same subject would probably be better than the first, because you'd have worked out your thoughts properly." When Gilbert is at home writing he'll often break off to watch television: "I love television, it's very good to relax to, and I like all those films they show." He admits that in his early days The Beatles influenced a lot of his work, although now he digs back to old musical shows and music by Cole Porter and Rodgers and Hart. "But when I listen to a record, all I hear are the words.  It's very important as a writer to hear good songs.  The trouble today is that most of pop music is just sounds." Will he therefore be writing a musical for the stage?  "I don't see myself writing a musical at the moment, but Gordon would like me to.  Maybe I will one day." And so Gilbert O'Sullivan shuts himself up behind drawn curtains in his cottage writing songs for the future.  It's a method, by the way, that he's always employed. "I mean, I could be working in the middle of Oxford Street right now for all I know.  With the curtains drawn I could be anywhere.  The great thing down here is the quiet.  I do all my best writing late at night, especially after the television has finished.  I remember when I used to live in a bed-sit in Bayswater, one Good Friday I just stocked up with food and didn't go out for several days.  That's the way I still like to work.  you can't work once you start appearing, or going on a tour or going to America." So Gilbert O'Sullivan, the pale-faced slim singer songwriter from Waterford in Ireland has arrived.  Yet he seems almost fearful of success: worried more about whether the local shop will close before he can buy some more tea, than what he's going to do with the next large sum of money his songs will earn him. But it is a genuine attitude, because Gilbert has had to suffer to succeed.  And that's kept him nice. Thanks JB