It is with great sadness that we report the death of Lynsey de Paul, who together with Mike Moran wrote and performed ‘Rock Bottom’ for the United Kingdom at the 1977 Eurovision Song Contest, finishing 2nd.
The successful singer-songwriter died yesterday morning of a suspected brain haemorrhage at a London hospital.
Born in 1948 in Cricklewood, North London, Lynsey de Paul attended Hornsey College of Art. It was here she started designing album sleeves for artists, an endeavour that earned her enough money to move into her first flat, where she began songwriting.
Her breakthrough as a songwriter came in 1972 with ‘Storm in a teacup’ which was a UK top ten hit for the Fortunes. Then later that year she reached the top ten as a singer herself, with ‘Sugar Me’ which also topped the charts in Spain, Belgium and the Netherlands, and was later covered by Nancy Sinatra in the USA.
After a series of more minor hits in the UK, her song ‘Won’t Somebody Dance With Me’ won an Ivor Novello award in 1974, making Lynsey de Paul the first ever female songwriter to win one. She followed this with another win a year later for the theme tune she wrote for the comedy TV series, No Honestly.
After a very prolific period in the mid-1970s during which she wrote multiple hits for other artists, she teamed up with Mike Moran to compete in A Song For Europe 1977 and then the main Eurovision competition held in London, where they came 2nd.
Throughout the 80s and 90s she continued to write songs for herself, for other artists and for television, before beginning to appear more on television herself in her later life as a television presenter. Whilst Lynsey de Paul never married, she was linked romantically to Ringo Starr, Sean Connery, Dudley Moore and Bernie Taupin amongst others throughout her life.
Her death yesterday was unexpected according to members of her family, and our thoughts and prayers are with them during this difficult time.
