Song of the Day 10/1: Gilbert O’Sullivan, “Alone Again (Naturally)”

I mentioned this song yesterday, comparing its opening verse to Paul Westerberg’s original version of “Can’t Hardly Wait” because the protagonists of both songs start their soliloquies by announcing they’re going to throw themselves off a tower. Sadly, Westerberg’s paean to despair never enjoyed the kind of commercial success that Raymond Edward “Gilbert” O’Sullivan achieved with his tale of suicidal ideation. “Alone Again (Naturally)” spent six weeks at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 and was the second-best-selling single of 1972. Two decades later it changed music history.

The song spent an equal amount of time topping the Easy Listening chart, which, combined with O’Sullivan’s music-hall-style piano, created an enormous backlash against the song from rockists, who didn’t realize that in a matter of months they would be inundated by sensitive singer-songwriters who made O’Sullivan sound like a young tough.

The popularity came from the audience for MOR (stands for Middle Of the Road, kidz) artists. They loved the song — early covers abound from people like Sarah Vaughn, Shirley Bassey, Neil Sedaka and Neil Diamond, who expressed amazement that it was written by a 21-year-old. Johnny Mathis, Mama Cass Elliott — everybody with a TV variety show took a shot at it, but everyone fucked it up by playing up the pathos even more than the original, which works in part because of O’Sullivan’s understated delivery.

Treacly arrangement aside, the song is surprisingly sophisticated. The melody glides over a 16-bar sequence of chords that suspends resolution until the last beat of the last measure, “naturally.” The self-pitying lyrics never descend into banality — even well-worn phrases like “God in his mercy” and “my mother, God rest her soul” are deftly employed. I mean, there are many left-at-the-altar songs, but who else ever managed to follow that misfortune with verses about the absence of God and the deaths of his parents — and see it become a pop standard? It illustrates a point that’s missed by every Lifetime TV movie ever made — people only love schmaltz when it’s high-quality.

By the end of the ’70s MOR was dead, and the song disappeared — until the hip-hop revolution. Back in its Golden Age, DJs and rappers would sample any piece of vinyl without regard for copyrights. “Alone Again (Naturally)” caught the ear of the late, lamented Biz Markie, who sampled the four-bar piano introduction for his tale of mundane disappointments. “Alone Again” appeared on his third album, 1991’s “I Need a Haircut.” Some rap song samples are just snippets as a starting point; this sounds like a straight-up lift. O’Sullivan had sold rights to the song to a music publishing company, whose executives took notice. They sued and won; Markie had to give up all royalties from the song. From then on rappers have had to pay for samples.

Once the new millennium rolled around, singers started dusting off the original version. Most have learned that a wistful approach works better than over-emoting, a point made concisely by Diana Krall, whose breathy world-weariness is perfect for the material. She shares vocals with Michael Bublé, whose more polished voice recalls the oversold versions so common in the ’70s.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v0XshfiDA0Y