Top 81 Quotes & Sayings by Gilbert O'Sullivan
Explore popular quotes and sayings by an Irish musician Gilbert O'Sullivan.
Last updated on November 5, 2024.
Whenever I write lyrics and an Americanism slips in, I always cut it straight out. I can't use the word 'babe,' for instance. It makes me cringe.
I have learned to avoid the coverage, good or bad - and it's mostly bad.
There are two types of session guitar players. One reads and only plays what the 'dots' say. The other adds that something special and plays notes and solos you dream of. Big Jim Sullivan was such a player.
We all try to increase our length of life, but we all have to pass. It's highly interesting as a lyricist.
I know I can cut it with any songwriters in the world.
Success for me is to write what I think is a good song. When I'm pleased with it, that, for me, is a magical moment. I never lost that buzz.
The perception that if you're not on 'Top Of The Pops' you're dead and buried is a good one for pop music, because 'TOTP' is a catalyst or barometer for pop success.
You see, I read reviews of people like Paul Simon, and they don't talk about the fact that he's looking old or whether he is fashionable; they talk about the music, which is how it should be.
I like conflict in songs.
I've always been interested in relationships and the break-up of relationships.
I'd go to meetings with record companies - CBS, Decca, EMI. They'd tell me to wear a pair of jeans and grow my hair and look normal. And I'd say, 'Sod that,' and storm out. And I do think that belligerence is important when you're young.
The quality of my songs will get through to people. They are good songs. Lyrically, some of them are interesting: there's stories, a bit of humour. I'm very confident about the music I play, you know.
Just because you sell millions of records it doesn't guarantee bums on seats.
Song writing is very serious; it is hard.
I've always been a bit of a loner.
I'd love to see myself on sale in shops. It tickles me, does the idea of me being marketed.
I think if every song I had was, 'I love you, you love me,' there would be a problem.
It's ridiculous that people would judge my songs based on what I wore, but that's how it is... superficial. I don't really care, though - I am confident in the quality of my own work.
It's very easy to think about rhymes and just usage of words that sound good but don't mean anything. Basically, I try to put into song the way people actually talk.
I do believe that any conflict has a better chance of being resolved if two people can come face to face.
I've never recorded anyone else's songs. I'm not interested. If you gave me a song by Bono and Edge and promised me a number one hit with it I'd still say no. That, for me, is not the kind of success I want.
When I started out I thought just hearing one of my records on the radio would be magical. Fortunately, that naivety has always stayed with me. Because when you've had massive success and it tapers off people lose interest in you. So you have to work even harder to generate interest.
The Beatles changed everything . I knew I couldn't compete, couldn't be as cool, so I went completely the other way.
At school, I was basically a loner, it was hard until I was 15 or so. Then I went to art school and was gifted with freedom to do the things I really wanted to do.
It is ironic that losing makes you more liked than winning.
My Norwegian wife Aase was a Pan Am stewardess back in the Seventies when we met. She was very attractive, and we became good friends, but I was travelling a lot and she was jetting back and forth across the Atlantic, so it was a while before we got together.
I only think in the following terms: writing, recording, releasing. That's what I have control of. What I don't have control is whether critics or the public like what I do.
I quite like the idea of performing in front of people that don't like me.
I'm not a great socialiser. Nor am I a red carpet person.
I couldn't live without Radio 1. They condemned me to oblivion, but they're what I grew up with.
I'm very much a home bird. I sometimes think I should have been a domestic. I like sweeping up, getting everything tidy. I'm obsessive compulsive. I don't mind admitting it.
The music is the thing. I am not writing for critics; I don't want to become a personality.
I think I'm a good lyricist.
I wanted to look different. I liked being original.
I always want to keep moving musically and trying new things.
I don't trust anybody.
I used to get these reviews in American newspapers saying that they didn't understand what my lyrics were about. I saw that as a compliment. That's exactly what English songwriters should be doing!
Nobody likes going to court.
I don't like people who make records and then don't ever perform. If you are going to make a record it's important you get out there so people can see you if they want to and get to hear you if they want to.
I work in the studio all day, and then I go for a walk with my dog, listening to music on headphones. And Saturday and Sundays, work is strictly out of bounds. It has to be.
I thought my singing and songwriting were good, but nothing different. Then you're presented with this picture image that contradicts the impression you get from listening to the record.
I never wanted global fame you know.
Nothing Rhymed,' my first single in England, was a nice ballad, which I thought would sound like a songwriter typical of the day - denim, jeans, long hair, early 20s.
I often meet people who say, 'I thought you were dead.'
The basis of everything I do is down to the song. If I don't have the song I don't sing, and if I don't sing I don't perform.
What I would hate to go through is what happened in the mid-90s playing in front of a half-empty theatre, which prompted me to say 'never again' when it came to Waterford. To go through that again in any of the places I call home would destroy me.
I do like to write about dark subjects.
I used to play music all night and sleep during the day. I was very career-minded. The music dominated everything and anything that interfered with that, I put a stop to it.
Technology has very little to do with what I do. I have a purpose built studio but all I need for writing is my piano and a cassette recorder as I still use cassettes.
I always take a teapot with me on tour. I suppose it's only natural that I've just written a song called 'Where Would We Be Without Tea?'
I never complete a song until I'm actually going to make a record.
Success isn't dependent on the market place, because I can't control that. It's about completing a good song.
I do pick up on contemporary issues.
I bought my mum a new house when the money started to come in; it's that old cliche.
I feel every time I have 12 good songs for a new album, I am in with a chance to compete with the big boys. As long as I have that attitude, it's healthy.
I see myself in competition with Blur and Oasis. But everyone else just sees me as this guy with a history.
As long as I can write songs, make a record and do concerts, I'm really quite happy.
To be successful to me meant to have a hit record in England. I never looked outside England.
I am immensely proud of my Irish roots.
The writing is everything of course but you can't be making records and not be willing to go out there and perform.
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