Gilbert O'Sullivan - BBC Sessions, Volume 3: 1972-1976

I recently found some Gilbert O'Sullivan BBC session material that I'd missed. In fact, I found so many that I split what had been "BBC Sessions, Volume 1" into a revamped "Volume 1" plus this album. (In between chronologically is a 1971 concert that makes up "Volume 2.") So, before I say anything more, if you want to download this, you should redownload "Volume 1." I added five songs I'd previously missed to that one, and moved a bunch of songs from there to here, and so on. 

Here's the link to the revised version:

https://albumsthatshouldexist.blogspot.com/2025/05/gilbert-osullivan-bbc-sessions-volume-1.html

Furthermore, note that while "Volume 2" stays exactly the same, I also had to renumber the two BBC volumes that come after this one. That includes "Volume 4," which I just posted here a few days prior to this, and is now called "Volume 5." (Sigh.) Here are the updated links for those:

https://albumsthatshouldexist.blogspot.com/2025/05/gilbert-osullivan-bbc-sessions-volume-3.html

https://albumsthatshouldexist.blogspot.com/2025/12/gilbert-osullivan-bbc-sessions-volume-4.html 

The first seven songs here were moved from the old "Volume 1." They all are from the BBC "Top of the Pops" radio show (not to be confused with the TV show of the same name), and were very rare until an anonymous musical friend passed them on to me. However, everything else is new. All the remaining songs come from TV shows, mostly from the BBC, but with a couple of non-BBC ones thrown in there too.

Tracks 8 and 9 are from a TV special called "Burt Bacharach: Opus No. 3," in 1973. O'Sullivan almost never performed cover songs, but he did a short version of the Bacharach classic "Do You Know the Way to San Jose." Then he did a version of his big hit "Alone Again (Naturally)" with Bacharach essentially interviewing him for about a minute during the middle of the song!  

Tracks 10 and 11 are from the "Midnight Special" TV show in 1973. It was the only time he was on that show. Tracks 12, 13, and 14 are from the BBC TV show "It's Lulu." Track 15 is from a TV special called "Gilbert O'Sullivan: Welcome to My Show." I wish I had more, but unfortunately, most of it seems to have been lost or at least remains unavailable. This one song probably survived because it was a duet with Elton John. (And one other song performed by John survived as well.) Tracks 16 and 17 are from the BBC TV show "Lulu" in 1975. And the last song is from the BBC TV show "Shirley Bassey" in 1976.

I ran into a bit of a problem with all these different sources. O'Sullivan had a huge hit with "Get Down" in 1973, as it went to Number One in Britain and made the Top Ten in the U.S. I ended up with three versions of the song here, including two right in a row. The first, from the "Top of the Pops" radio show, is O'Sullivan doing it on his own. Then track 14 is a version of him performing the song as a duet with Lulu. Right after that, track 15, is a duet version with Elton John. I thought all three were different and interesting enough for me to include them all.

Everything here is unreleased. The sound quality is excellent. 

This album is 50 minutes long.

01 Bye Bye (Gilbert O'Sullivan)
02 Ooh Wakka Doo Wakka Day (Gilbert O'Sullivan)
03 But I'm Not (Gilbert O'Sullivan)
04 Clair (Gilbert O'Sullivan)
05 I Hope You'll Stay (Gilbert O'Sullivan)
06 Out of the Question (Gilbert O'Sullivan)
07 Get Down (Gilbert O'Sullivan)
08 Do You Know the Way to San Jose (Gilbert O'Sullivan & Burt Bacharach)
09 Alone Again [Naturally] (Gilbert O'Sullivan & Burt Bacharach)
10 Ooh Baby (Gilbert O'Sullivan)
11 Who Knows Perhaps Maybe (Gilbert O'Sullivan)
12 Why Oh Why Oh Why (Gilbert O'Sullivan)
13 talk (Gilbert O'Sullivan)
14 Get Down (Gilbert O'Sullivan & Lulu)
15 Get Down (Gilbert O'Sullivan & Elton John)
16 Nothing to Do about Much (Gilbert O'Sullivan)
17 You Are You (Gilbert O'Sullivan)
18 Can't Get Enough of You (Gilbert O'Sullivan)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/7uve1osJ

alternate: 

https://bestfile.io/en/phyte77MENyKMVA/file

The cover photo is taken from the Burt Bacharach TV special where tracks 8 and 9 are from. Bacharach was in the original image, but I cropped him out to focus on O'Sullivan. 

Gilbert O'Sullivan - BBC Sessions, Volume 5: Friday Night Is Music Night, Mermaid Theatre, London, Britain, 2-12-2016

I recently randomly stumbled across this concert by singer-songwriter Gilbert O'Sullivan. Since I've already posted four BBC albums by him, I decided to post it right away. It's a full concert with a complete orchestra backing him.

This is kind of the ultimate Gilbert O'Sullivan concert, due to the generous length, song selection, and many backing musicians. In addition to the orchestra mentioned above, O'Sullivan dueted with three different singers over the course of the concert.

I found this as a single file and then broke it into mp3s for each song. The music here is unreleased. The sound quality is excellent. 

This album is an hour and 43 minutes long. 

01 talk by Ken Bruce (Gilbert O'Sullivan)
02 Thunder and Lightning (Gilbert O'Sullivan)
03 Private Eye (Gilbert O'Sullivan)
04 Out of the Question (Gilbert O'Sullivan)
05 talk (Gilbert O'Sullivan)
06 Nothing Rhymed (Gilbert O'Sullivan)
07 Where Would We Be [Without Tea] (Gilbert O'Sullivan)
08 talk (Gilbert O'Sullivan)
09 We Will (Gilbert O'Sullivan & Eleanor McEvoy)
10 Houdini Said (Gilbert O'Sullivan)
11 Miss My Love Today (Gilbert O'Sullivan)
12 talk (Gilbert O'Sullivan)
13 I Guess I'll Always Love You (Gilbert O'Sullivan & Ayala)
14 talk (Gilbert O'Sullivan)
15 Can't Think Straight (Gilbert O'Sullivan)
16 talk (Gilbert O'Sullivan)
17 Ooh-Wakka-Doo-Wakka-Day (Gilbert O'Sullivan)
18 Clair (Gilbert O'Sullivan)
19 You Got Me Going (Gilbert O'Sullivan)
20 No Way (Gilbert O'Sullivan)
21 talk (Gilbert O'Sullivan)
22 No Matter How I Try (Gilbert O'Sullivan)
23 talk (Gilbert O'Sullivan & Bobby Davro)
24 Showbiz (Gilbert O'Sullivan & Bobby Davro)
25 Young at Heart [We'll Always Remain] (Gilbert O'Sullivan)
26 Or So They Say (Gilbert O'Sullivan)
27 talk (Gilbert O'Sullivan)
28 Lost a Friend (Gilbert O'Sullivan)
29 Why, Oh Why, Oh Why (Gilbert O'Sullivan)
30 Hold On to What You Got (Gilbert O'Sullivan)
31 talk (Gilbert O'Sullivan)
32 What's in a Kiss (Gilbert O'Sullivan)
33 Alone Again [Naturally] (Gilbert O'Sullivan)
34 Matrimony (Gilbert O'Sullivan)
35 Get Down (Gilbert O'Sullivan) 

https://pixeldrain.com/u/6ruNrhED

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/MfpH01we0zmoDdS/file

The cover photo is from this exact concert. 

Gilbert O'Sullivan - BBC Sessions, Volume 4: Sight and Sound, Golders Green Hippodrome, London, Britain, 1-28-1978

This is the fourth album I have of singer-songwriter Gilbert O'Sullivan performing for the BBC. Like Volume 2, it's a short concert.

Gilbert O'Sullivan had a lot of hit songs and popular albums from 1970 to 1975. After that, his popularity dropped considerably. He did have one last hit single in 1980 with "What's in a Kiss?" But at the time of this concert, his popularity was at an all-time low for him. His most recent album, "Southpaw," released in late 1977, didn't even make the album charts anywhere. New musical styles like disco, punk, and new wave were all the rage. It didn't help that he was having trouble with his record company. He discovered they were ripping him off. After years of legal trouble, in 1978, he won about 45 million dollars (adjusted to its 2025 value). But presumably the record company retaliated by failing to promote him. He later said the legal battle effectively put his music career on hold for years. 

So kudos to the BBC for giving him this prominent platform in 1978 anyway. "Sight and Sound" was a BBC TV show (thus the "sight" as well as the "sound"). It showed O'Sullivan rocking more than in the past, and still a very capable songwriter and performer.

I don't think this has been shared as an audio bootleg before. I found a video of the concert on YouTube, converted it to audio, and broke it into mp3s. Despite that, the sound quality is excellent.

This album is 35 minutes long. 

UPDATE: On December 4, 2025, I updated the mp3 download file. The music is exactly the same. But I renamed the album to "Volume 4" after finding enough music to split an earlier volume into two.

01 talk (Gilbert O'Sullivan)
02 If I Can't Have You All to Myself (Gilbert O'Sullivan)
03 Things that Go Bump in the Night (Gilbert O'Sullivan)
04 talk (Gilbert O'Sullivan)
05 For What It's Worth (Gilbert O'Sullivan)
06 talk (Gilbert O'Sullivan)
07 Nothing Rhymed (Gilbert O'Sullivan)
08 talk (Gilbert O'Sullivan)
09 Miss My Love Today (Gilbert O'Sullivan)
10 talk (Gilbert O'Sullivan)
11 The Best Fun I Ever Had (Gilbert O'Sullivan)
12 talk (Gilbert O'Sullivan)
13 That's Where I Belong (Gilbert O'Sullivan)
14 talk (Gilbert O'Sullivan)
15 Forever Wondering (Gilbert O'Sullivan)
16 Get Down (Gilbert O'Sullivan)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/RRncpGHR

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/39s5dKZVecSqnAn/file

The cover image is a screenshot I took from this exact concert. I used the Krea AI to boost the low-res image quality somewhat.

Gilbert O'Sullivan - BBC Sessions, Volume 2: In Concert, London, Britain, 12-18-1971

Here's a second volume of singer-songwriter Gilbert O'Sullivan performing for the BBC. It was done for the half-hour long TV show "In Concert," so it's quite short.

This concert took place early in O'Sullivan's music career. He struggled for a few years with some singles, but only released his first album in August 1971, a few months prior to this concert. He also had two hits in Britain by this time, "Nothing Rhymed" and "We Will," both of which were performed here. He would have a really big hit just a couple of months after this, "Alone Again (Naturally)," which would also break him in the U.S.

This concert is unreleased, but the sound quality is excellent. Too bad it's so short.

This album is 29 minutes long.

01 Mr. Moody's Garden (Gilbert O'Sullivan)
02 If I Don't Get You [Back Again] (Gilbert O'Sullivan)
03 talk (Gilbert O'Sullivan)
04 Susan Van Heusen (Gilbert O'Sullivan)
05 talk (Gilbert O'Sullivan)
06 January Git (Gilbert O'Sullivan)
07 Nothing Rhymed (Gilbert O'Sullivan)
08 Permissive Twit (Gilbert O'Sullivan)
09 We Will (Gilbert O'Sullivan)
10 talk (Gilbert O'Sullivan)
11 Bye-Bye (Gilbert O'Sullivan)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/LjJwnZje

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/lUoMhn9Mdqk5xU2/file

The cover image is a screenshot I took from a video of this exact concert. I used the Krea AI program to improve the quality.

Gilbert O'Sullivan - BBC Sessions, Volume 1: 1968-1972

Here's an album of Irish singer-songwriter Gilbert O'Sullivan performing for the BBC. Before putting his BBC albums together, I was only familiar with a couple of his hits, like "Alone Again (Naturally)" and "Get Down." Probably that's because I'm American and he was only a big star in Britain. But he's a talented songwriter with a unique style, for sure. 

This album mostly consists of BBC studio sessions, all from "Top of the Pops" shows. Also, the songs from that radio show here are not only unreleased but I believe they also haven't even been bootlegged. I'm lucky enough to have them thanks to an anonymous musical friend passing BBC "Top of the Pops" radio shows to me. So I want to make stuff like this publicly available. This will be a major find for any Gilbert O'Sullivan fan, especially because the sound quality is excellent, despite the fact that everything is unreleased.

Gilbert O'Sullivan moved to London in 1967 to pursue a music career. For a few years he was unsuccessful. Luckily, we have a BBC session from 1968, well before he had wide success. It's a session with famous BBC DJ John Peel, and makes up the first five tracks here.

But he had a surprise Top Ten hit in Britain in 1970 with the song "Nothing Rhymed." (It's unfortunate that I couldn't find a BBC studio session version of that song to include here, but there is a live version in "Volume 2" in this series.) He went on to have 13 Top Forty hits in Britain over the next ten years, including two Number One songs. He didn't do as well in the U.S., but he did have three big hits there too: "Alone Again (Naturally)," "Clair," and "Get Down." 

It helped that he understood the importance of branding. He changed his name from Raymond Sullivan to Gilbert O'Sullivan to play off people's memories of the Gilbert and Sullivan songwriting team. He also stuck with several distinctive looks, the first and best known being what Wikipedia called a "Depression-era street urchin" look.

Here's his Wikipedia entry:

Gilbert O'Sullivan - Wikipedia

I must say I'm rather surprised there hasn't been an official BBC album of this stuff, or even just including some of them as bonus tracks or on archival releases or the like. As I mentioned above, the sound quality here is excellent for all the songs. The only snag was the usual problem of BBC DJ Brian Matthew talking over the beginnings and ends of songs. That's why so many song titles have "[Edit]" in them. As usual, I wiped the DJ talking while keeping the music using the UVR5 program.

This album is 52 minutes long. 

UPDATE: On December 5, 2025, I drastically updated the mp3 download file. Previously, this album dealt with a different time range, 1971 to 1973. But I found enough studio sessions to split this album in two. I added the 1968 BBC session at the beginning, then took off some songs at the end and added them to a brand new "Volume 3."

01 What Can I Do (Gilbert O'Sullivan)
02 Disappear (Gilbert O'Sullivan)
03 My Front Door Is (Gilbert O'Sullivan)
04 I Don't Know What To Do (Gilbert O'Sullivan)
05 Better than Valentino (Gilbert O'Sullivan)
06 Doing the Best I Can [Edit] (Gilbert O'Sullivan)
07 Underneath the Blanket Go [Edit] (Gilbert O'Sullivan)
08 Everybody Knows [Edit] (Gilbert O'Sullivan)
09 Thunder and Lightning [Edit] (Gilbert O'Sullivan)
10 Matrimony [Edit] (Gilbert O'Sullivan)
11 Permissive Twit [Edit] (Gilbert O'Sullivan)
12 We Will [Edit] (Gilbert O'Sullivan)
13 Susan van Heusen [Edit] (Gilbert O'Sullivan)
14 Too Much Attention [Edit] (Gilbert O'Sullivan)
15 Who Was It [Edit] (Gilbert O'Sullivan)
16 No Matter How I Try [Edit] (Gilbert O'Sullivan)
17 If I Don't Get You Back Again [Edit] (Gilbert O'Sullivan)
18 Alone Again [Naturally] (Gilbert O'Sullivan)
19 Save It (Gilbert O'Sullivan)
20 Came to See Me Yesterday [In the Merry Month Of] (Gilbert O'Sullivan)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/qhjVUmcZ

alternate: 

https://bestfile.io/WZlOHnFkn0MdwPB/file

I don't know anything about the cover photo except that it's from 1971 or 1972, when O'Sullivan was still sporting his 1930s look.