It’s time for another installment of WEIRD ‘70s POP LYRICS! This week: “Clair.”
“Clair” was a 1972 hit for Gilbert O’Sullivan, the pseudonym for London-based singer/songwriter Raymond O’Sullivan, climbing to the #2 Pop Single on the Billboard chart.
Listening to this as a kid, nothing seemed amiss because although I must have heard this song dozens of times, I never paid attention to the lyrics in the least. If you’d asked me what it was about, I would have remembered the only lyrics that stuck with me, the opening lines “Clair, the moment I met you, I swear,” and said that it’s some cheesy song about some guy who likes this girl named Clair.
When I listened to it recently and actually listened to what this guy is singing about my jaw dropped.
Yes, this is it, folks. The weirdest of all the weird ‘70s hits. And get your pitchforks and torches ready because this one is so weird, you’ll suspect it’s criminal. Or at least evidence of criminal, deeply immoral activity. Seriously. It’s hard to look at these lyrics and not wonder why Scotland Yard didn’t pay Mr. O’Sullivan a visit.
Okay, here we go.
As I said, the lyrics open up innocuously enough. After some carefree whistling:
Clair, the moment I met you I swear,
I felt as if something somewhere,
Had happened to me,
Which I couldn't see
And then,
The moment I met you again,
I knew in my heart that we were friends,
It had to be so,
It couldn't be no
Like a million songs, this one’s about love at first sight. What could go wrong from here?
But try as hard as I might do I don't know why,
You get to me in a way I can't describe,
Words mean so little when you look up and smile,
I don't care what people say,
To me you're more than a child,
Oh! Clair, Clair
Clair, if ever a moment so rare,
Was captured for all to compare,
That moment is you,
It's all that you do
“To me you’re more than a child.” Okay, so it’s about a guy who’s in love with someone younger than he is. That’s an issue for a lot of couples, no problem. And clearly he doesn’t literally mean “child” (even though she has to look “up” to him to smile); he means a younger adult who O'Sullivan's wizened, jaded friends would dismiss as a child. Right?
But why, in spite of our age difference, do I cry?
Each time I leave you I feel I could die
So the age difference is an issue, but it’s sweet -- he can’t stand to be without her.
Nothing means more to me than hearing you say,
“I'm going to marry you,
Will you marry me, Uncle Ray?”
Oh! Clair, Clair
“Uncle?” Wait a minute. “Uncle Ray?!” Is this really about a romance between Ray (O’Sullivan) and someone young enough, and familially close enough, to call him “Uncle?”
Let’s back up. Maybe it’s not about a romantic relationship. He did say that when he met her, he knew they’d be “friends.” And yet if he's just singing about an especially cute little girl who's his little pal, the lyrics are awfully overwrought. Each time he leaves her, he could die. And “nothing means more” to him than hearing her talk about marrying him. And if they were just friends, why would he not “care what people say,” insisting she’s “more than a child”?
Um, just how young is she? And how exactly do they know each other? The answers:
Clair, I've told you before,
Don't you dare,
Get back into bed,
Can't you see that it's late
What?!
No you can't have a drink,
Oh, all right then but wait just a bit,
While I, in an effort to baby sit,
Catch of my breath what there is left of it.
He’s babysitting her?!
You can be murder at this hour of the day,
But in the morning this hour,
Will seem a lifetime away,
Oh! Clair, Clair
Oh, Clair.
And the song ends with the sound of a little girl, perhaps five, giggling.
