Gilbert and Sullivan he offered a compromise that Sullivan eventually accepted. The two would write a light opera for the Savoy, and at the same time, Sullivan a grand opera ("Ivanhoe") for a new theatre that Carte was constructing to present British grand opera. After a brief impasse over the choice of subject, Sullivan accepted an idea connected with Venice and Venetian life, as "this seemed to me to hold out great chances of bright colour and taking music." "The Gondoliers" (1889) takes place partly in Venice and partly in a kingdom ruled by a pair of gondoliers who attempt to remodel the
Back to Front (Gilbert O'Sullivan album) was introduced to by Rick Davies, O'Sullivan's former Rick's Blues bandmate and later a member of Supertramp. The song is suffixed by an "outro" to side one. Side two opens with the bluesy shuffle of "I'm in Love with You," featuring the distinctive slide guitar of Big Jim Sullivan. It is followed by the darkly humorous "Who Was It?", with its narrator "tripping a girl up in order to meet her," and "What Could Be Nicer", which is one of O'Sullivan's 'family songs' with "very English" kitchen sink lyrics that wistfully detail domestic scenarios with "home-spun philosophy," according to writer