Surprise (Lynsey de Paul album)

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Surprise
Studio album by Lynsey de Paul
Released	1973 (1973)
Studio	Air Studio, Oxford Street, London; Audio International Studios, London W1
Label	MAM
Producer	Lynsey de Paul
Lynsey de Paul chronology
Surprise (1973) The World of Lynsey de Paul (1973)

Surprise is the first album released by Lynsey de Paul on the MAM record label in 1973.^[1][2][3] In Australia, the album name was changed to Sugar Me, after de Paul's first hit single.^[4] All of the songs on the album were written or co-written by de Paul (half the tracks were re-recordings of her songwriting demos).^[5] On the album, de Paul was accompanied by some of the UK's leading session musicians including Terry Cox, Ralph McTell, Ray Cooper, Jeff Daly, John Gustafson, Chris Rae, Danny Thompson, Gary Boyle, Barry de Souza, Dick Katz, Robert Kirby, Francis Monkman, John Richardson (who would later become the drummer in The Rubettes) and violinist Johnny Van Derrick.^[6][7][8][9] The album front cover is a portrait photo of de Paul photographed by Clive Arrowsmith, and a gatefold sleeve with illustrations provided by de Paul, a nod to her previous career of designing album sleeves and song lyrics.^[10]

Surprisingly, her debut single "Sugar Me" was re-recorded for this album and has a much longer fade out with de Paul being the producer on this version rather than Gordon Mills, who produced the hit single version. This song was covered by many artists over the years, most notably in the United States by Nancy Sinatra and Claudine Longet.^[11][12] Another surprise was that neither the recent follow up hit "Getting a Drag" nor the third single "All Night" (released just one month after the "Surprise") were included on the LP. Although no other tracks were released by de Paul from the album as singles in the UK, Europe and US, the track "Water" was released as "Agua" in Chile and Peru, with "Rockerdile" as the B-side.^[13][14] The album's last track "Just Visiting" sees de Paul speculate that spacemen visited prehistoric man and gave continued guidance in mankind's development and that we might find ourselves in the same position,^[15] a theme taken up by Chris de Burgh in his later song "A Spaceman Came Travelling". One review in the mainstream press stated "De Paul manages to write a very good song on "Was God an astronaut?"".^[16] "Just Visiting" was included on the French duo Pilooski & Pentile's (aka Discodeine) guest mix released to promote their album Swimmer (2013).^[17][18]

De Paul performed live versions of some of the tracks from the album on television including Top of the Pops (and an album was released to BBC radio stations around the world containing these tracks),^[19] as well as on the first episode of the German TV program, Musikladen performing "Sugar Me", and later on episode 5 performing "Doctor, Doctor".^[20] She also performed "Sleeping Blue Nights" on the German TV program Hits-a-Go-Go on 24 June 1973.^[21][22] Other promotional work included a lengthy interview with de Paul, as well as airplay of featured album tracks on Japanese radio (Nippon Viva Turtle Show).^[23]