"Alone Again (Naturally)" (1972)

90.  Gilbert O'Sullivan, "Alone Again (Naturally)" (July 1, 1972, #1, 6 wks.)

Irish skiffle-influenced singer/songwriter Gilbert O'Sullivan (not to be confused with Gilbert & Sullivan, it says here) basically ruled the AM radio waves in the summer of 1972 with this nagging ditty that almost instantly crawled under my skin and retains the power today, even with its drippy sing-songy wallow in self-pity, or more likely because of it, to make me deliciously, deliciously sad. File under "guilty pleasure"—but noting its six-week stay at the top, which type lengthy reign was not as common in the '60s and '70s as it has been in the past 20 years, I think, in that assessment, that I was hardly alone ("again, naturally"). It's utterly forthright, if cloyingly precious, in declaring its despondency: "I promise myself to treat myself / And visit a nearby tower / And climbing to the top / Throw myself off." The dagger to the heart occurs in the third verse, all necessary groundwork sufficiently laid, when he describes, first, his mother's bewilderment at his father's death, and then, shortly after, her own death. "I cried and cried all day," he announces. Well, who wouldn't? I hadn't heard this in the longest time and in my memory it also featured the death of a pet, a cat I thought, but that doesn't seem to be here, nor anything like it in O'Sullivan's two other, vastly inferior chart appearances ("Clair" and "Get Down"). So I must have imagined it. Take a listen to this, if you don't remember it, and you'll understand why anyone might recall it including a dead beloved kitten. And so, right here, this is the end of the line for me with Gilbert O'Sullivan, which leaves him, of course...