What do you think Clair means?

Gilbert O'Sullivan: Clair Meaning

Album cover for Clair album cover

Song Released: 1972


Clair Lyrics

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...

Write your interpretation
Notify me of new interps
  1. anonymous
    click a star to vote
     Dec 22nd 2012 !⃝

    No need to get emotionally charged and read into this anything more than what occurs every day between youngsters and their adult relatives. The then 3-year old Claire, was the daughter of his manager/producer Gordon Mills.

    From Wikipedia

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clair_(song)


    The song is the love song of an uncle for his young niece, though for the first part of the song, the ambiguous text leads one to think that it is from one adult to another. The brief instrumental introduction is the sound of Gilbert whistling, before he comes in. The real Clair was the young daughter of O'Sullivan's producer-manager, Gordon Mills, and his wife, the model Jo Waring. The little girl's giggling is heard at the end of this song. The "Uncle Ray" mentioned in the song is O'Sullivan himself, a reference to his real name of Raymond O'Sullivan.

  2. anonymous
    click a star to vote
     Oct 27th 2012 !⃝

    Hace unos años cuando esta canción fué escrita, la vida era mas simple, mas limpia que ahora, en esa época yo no vi nada malo en la letra de esta canción. Actualmente cuando la oigo todavía me encanta, pero no dejo de pensar que podría malinterpretarse y que algún maldito pedófilo quisiera tomarla de bandera para sus asquerosos fines, pero lo que para mi es definitivo es que es una bellisisima canción y que deberíamos olvidarnos del aspecto negativo que podría malinterpretarse de ella.

  3. anonymous
    click a star to vote
     Aug 20th 2012 !⃝

    I have always thought this song was from a father singing to his daughter. It is natural for a daughter to say that she wants to marry her father (at very early age, of course!). Up until recently, my son (now 6 years old) would say that he wanted to marry my wife/his mom. Nothing creepy, unless he is still saying that when he is 16!

  4. anonymous
    click a star to vote
     Apr 14th 2012 !⃝

    For me, Clair is not a niece of "Uncle" Ray. I think Clair and Ray has an age difference that seems a bit huge at that time, like say Clair was 15 while Ray could be 20 or 22. And for kids at that age, anyone older than them, they would call their elder Uncle or Aunt even they are not biologically related and the reference to uncle or aunt is about the age difference, like 4 or 5 or 6 years. It's like the song Don't Cry Jodi where the girl Jodi is infatuated with guy named Jimmy who is 7 years older than her. When Jodi was like 15, she had a huge crush on Jimmy,but Jimmy wouldn't reciprocate Jodi's feelings because for him, she was still a child but after several years when Jimmy came back, he went to Jodi thinking that since Jodi has aged a bit, they can now have a relationship, to which he found out that Jodi was unable to wait for him when she has come of age and has married instead his bestfriend John.

  5. anonymous
    click a star to vote
     Dec 31st 2011 !⃝

    I never realized how creepy this song was until we played it last new year's eve and a friend asked why were were playing a song about a pedaphile. At first I argued that this could not be the case, it was a song about an uncle who was babysitting his niece...to which my friends agreed and said, "Yeah, and there's nothing creepy about that".

    Sorry, everyone. Didn't mean to ruin this song for you too.

1234 next ›



More Gilbert O'Sullivan songs »


 


Latest Articles

 


Submit Your Interpretation

[ want a different song? ]