Top 50 Gilbert OSullivan Quotes

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 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’ve always been a bit of a loner.

I love writing and I just sit at my keyboard and write.

What I can’t understand is why people still won’t give me the credibility that I look for. If Mojo or any other of those magazines would give me the credit for only ever performing my own songs rather than someone like Rod Stewart singing other people’s songs looking for success.

I bought my mum a new house when the money started to come in; it’s that old cliche.

I was a big fan of Buster Keaton and Charlie Chaplin.

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.

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.

My motto is, ‘You may not be as good as you think you are, but thinking you are is good.’

I’d love to see myself on sale in shops. It tickles me, does the idea of me being marketed.

I’ve always been interested in relationships and the break-up of relationships.

Just because you sell millions of records it doesn’t guarantee bums on seats.

We all try to increase our length of life, but we all have to pass. It’s highly interesting as a lyricist.

I always want to keep moving musically and trying new things.

It is ironic that losing makes you more liked than winning.

The Beatles changed everything . I knew I couldn’t compete, couldn’t be as cool, so I went completely the other way.

When it comes to my songs I’m confident. Back in 1967, I would go to a publisher’s office, and tell them they just had to listen to my music.

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.

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.

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.

I’m basically as shy a person as I was when I once worked in an office in London in the late Sixties. I like my own company. I didn’t need a lot of friends.

I couldn’t live without tea. I have two cups in the morning, one at lunch, two in the afternoon and one in the evening – Assam with milk and sugar. It has to be leaf tea – no bags – and drunk from a china cup.

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’m not a great socialiser. Nor am I a red carpet person.

As you get older you lose interest in what you hear on the radio. But you can’t be like that, you have to enjoy what’s going on.

I didn’t come into the music business to make money. I came into it to be a success. Of course, if you’re successful, you’ll earn money and I was happy to receive it.

I always tell people that I went through long hair. I was a typical art school scruff. It was good then.

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.

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.

I do pick up on contemporary issues.

I see myself in competition with Blur and Oasis. But everyone else just sees me as this guy with a history.

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.

The way I do that is to keep coming up with good songs and when I do a concert, I make sure I give a good performance. It’s not rocket science.

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!

I must be the only artist whose image was hated by everybody.

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.

When the magazines talk about artists they talk about the Paul McCartneys, the Paul Simons, they never talk about me. So their readers and contemporary artists are never going to check me out because they’re not reading about me.

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.

I think I’m a good lyricist.

I don’t trust anybody.

The measure of success was writing a song, recording it and for it being in the hit parade in England. Success was about the postman walking up the garden whistling my song. I wasn’t trying to conquer the world.

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’ve never had writer’s block.

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.

I often meet people who say, ‘I thought you were dead.’

Success isn’t dependent on the market place, because I can’t control that. It’s about completing a good song.

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.