Today’s classic song of the day is a particularly depressing one. The song is “Alone Again (Naturally)” by Irish singer-songwriter Gilbert O’Sullivan, and it’s all about being jilted, contemplating suicide, and the death of his parents. Boy, what a peppy little tune.
Gilbert O’Sullivan wrote “Alone Again (Naturally)” and released it as a single in May of 1972. (February of 1972 in the UK.) Despite its morose nature, it went all the way to #1 on the Billboard Hot 100, Cash Box Top 100, and Billboard’s Adult Contemporary charts. It was also a number-one single in Canada and France, although it peaked at #2 in his native Ireland #3 on the UK Singles chart.
“Alone Again (Naturally)” is unusual not just for being extremely depressing, but because it lacks a chorus; the song is just three verses, each ending with the line, “Alone again, naturally.” (There’s also a very short bridge between the second and third verses.) The first verse has the narrator contemplating throwing himself off a nearby tower after being left at the alter. The second is about happy times turning sad and the narrator wondering why God, “if He really does exist,” deserted him. The third verse is about his father, who died at age sixty-five, and how his mother never got over the loss—and how the narrator “cried and cried all day” when she passed away.
Cherry stuff, that.
Still, “Alone Again (Naturally)” obviously struck a nerve with millions of listeners. It spent six weeks at number one (and fifteen total in the top forty), which says something. Billboard ranked it as the second most-popular song of the entire year.
For today’s daily bonus video of the day, let’s travel back to 1972 and watch Gilbert O’Sullivan singing “Alone Again (Naturally)” live (with real strings and flutes!) on some television program. It may sound like I’m knocking it, but it’s really a pretty good song.
