Gilbert O'Sullivan

I like conflict in songs. ”

I do believe that any conflict has a better chance of being resolved if two people can come face to face. ”

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. ”

At college I had a Saturday job in a hardware store and I got #1. When I came to London in 1966 and lived in a bedsit, I got a temporary job as a salesman in a C&A store. I don't know what I earned: enough to pay the rent, I imagine. Then, in 1967'68, I worked as a postal clerk for #10 a week. ”

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

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

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. ”

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

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. ”