A Stranger in My Own Back Yard

Gilbert O'Sullivan spent much of the early 1970s as one of the world's most successful singer-songwriters. With a style often marked by his distinctive, percussive piano playing style and observational lyrics using word play, O'Sullivan scored a string of major international hits between 1970 and 1973 including "Alone Again (Naturally)", which topped the Billboard Hot 100 for six non-consecutive weeks in 1972 and UK chart-toppers "Clair" and "Get Down". He was awarded three Ivor Novello Awards in this period, including for "Songwriter of the Year" in 1973. 1973 yielded O'Sullivan's final major US hit in "Ooh Baby". "Happiness Is Me and You", a non-album single released in February 1974, was a relative commercial flop compared to O'Sullivan's previous singles. It reached number 18 on the UK Singles Chart and failed to reach the US top 40. Gilbert composed his next album, his fourth, in Portugal in early 1974. He stayed in a small fishing village there for two months. ==Songs==

As with Gilbert O'Sullivan's previous albums, A Stranger in My Own Back Yard was produced by Gordon Mills and arranged by Johnnie Spence. The album was O'Sullivan's first not to be recorded at London's Audio International Studios. Sessions instead took place in two American studios: New York's A & R Recording, where recordings were engineered by Phil Ramone, and at Los Angeles's Sunset Sound Factory, engineered by John Haeny. O'Sullivan would not make another album produced by Gordon Mills. After the release of A Stranger in My Own Back Yard, O'Sullivan discovered his recording contract with MAM Records greatly favoured Mills, and a lawsuit followed. Musically, the song was compared to O'Sullivan's number-one hit "Get Down", The tracks "My Father", "I Wonder Would You Mind" and "Always Somebody" are minimal productions. They feature just O'Sullivan accompanying himself on the piano, aside from a horn solo on "My Father". This reflected O'Sullivan's original desire for his 1971 debut album Himself, which had ultimately featured full instrumentation. O'Sullivan had commented, "Gordon says work up to it gradually so probably by the time of my third album it will be done like that." ==Release and reception==

A Stranger in My Own Back Yard was released by MAM Records in October 1974. Printed advertisements for the album declared "A few albums stand out from the rest. This is one of them". The album was packaged in a lavish custom gatefold, mimicking a hardbound book. This design was credited to David Larkham And Friends and Glenn Ross. Larkham had been art director for Elton John's Goodbye Yellow Brick Road album in 1973. The cover photograph, showing a chest-baring O'Sullivan, was taken by British photographer Terry O'Neill. American music photographer Ed Caraeff shot the in-studio photographs of O'Sullivan featured inside the gatefold. In a retrospective review, AllMusic's J. Scott McClintock considered the album "the patchiest of O'Sullivan's early albums". McClintock found "A Woman's Place" to be "shockingly chauvinistic" and considered "The Thing Is" and "15 Times" to be "slap-dash efforts". However, McClintock praised "It's So Easy to Be Sad" and "My Father", comparing O'Sullivan's "witty and well-crafted" songs to those of Harry Nilsson. == Track listing ==

All songs written by Gilbert O'Sullivan. • "Number Four" - 1:25 • "A Woman's Place" - 3:17 • "No More" - 2:26 • "It's So Easy to Be Sad" - 4:42 • "My Father" - 2:43 • "The Marriage Machine" - 3:28 • "If You Ever" - 2:33 • "The Thing Is" - 4:01 • "Just Like Me" - 3:04 • "Victor E" - 2:46 • "I Wonder Would You Mind" - 2:19 • "15 Times" - 2:21 • "Nothing to Do About Much" - 3:27 • "Can't Get You to Love Me" - 2:25 • "Always Somebody" - 0:53 Bonus tracks on the 2012 remaster • "Happiness Is Me and You" (single, February 1974) - 3:11 • "Breakfast Dinner and Tea" (B-side of "Happiness Is Me and You") - 2:07 • "Too Bad" (B-side of "A Woman's Place", August 1974) - 3:13 • "To Cut a Long Story Short" (B-side of "Christmas Song", November 1974) - 2:46 • "You Are You" (single, January 1975) - 3:20 • "Tell Me Why" (B-side of "You Are You") - 2:58 • "That's a Fact" (B-side of "I Don't Love You But I Think I Like You", May 1975) - 2:39 ==Personnel==

• Gilbert O'Sullivan - vocals, piano ;Technical • Gordon Mills - producer • Phil Ramone - engineer • John Haeny - engineer • Johnnie Spence - arranger • Terry O'Neill - photography ==References==