Ed Masley

The Republic | azcentral.com

Harry Nilsson was one of pop music’s most gifted eccentrics, blessed with the voice of an angel, the mind of the smartest clown in class, a rare talent for getting inside the emotions of a lyric and making the listener feel things he’s not even saying, and melodic sensibilities refined enough that his fan club included the Beatles.

He only had a handful of hit singles but his music has endured, his records handed down through generations with cult-like devotion, inspiring tribute albums and new music. The Walkmen went so far as to honor his memory by cutting a song-by-song remake of “Pussy Cats,” an album he managed to cut between nights of debauchery in L.A. with a very drunk John Lennon.

To mark what would have been his 75th birthday, here’s a playlist of Nilsson’s best songs, as chosen by one fan. And opinions may vary. But whether you’d go with the songs on this playlist or not to make the case, there’s no denying that the songs here more than hold their own against the best his generation had to offer.

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1. “Without You” (1971)

Nilsson didn’t write this. Pete Ham and Tom Evans of Badfinger did. And their version appeared on the album “No Dice” a year before the Nilsson single hit the streets. But he didn’t just make it his own. He took a sad song and quite literally made it better. By making it sadder. No guitar has ever wept as gently as those opening piano chords (as played by Gary Wright). Then Nilsson starts to sing, an understated tremble coloring his vocal as he sets the tone with, “No, I can't forget this evening / Or your face as you were leaving / But I guess that's just the way the story goes.” And that’s just the first 20 seconds. Everything about Richard Perry’s production and Nilsson’s performance – the strings, the horns, the key change, Nilsson’s tortured reading of the final chorus, even that majestic outro -- underscores the pathos of “I guess that’s just the way the story goes.” Nilsson’s biggest hit, it spent four weeks at No. 1 and won Best Male Pop Vocal at the Grammys.

2. “One” (1968)

A melancholy meditation on one as “the loneliest number that you’ll ever do,” its signature piano part inspired by a busy signal, this Nilsson-penned chamber-pop classic is every bit as devastating as “Without You.” And although the previously cited lyric is quickly followed by the even sadder truth that “Two can be as bad as one / It's the loneliest number since the number one,” it’s painfully clear that he’d settle for two, especially by the time you hit the bridge and he reveals the source of his depression. “It's just no good anymore since you went away,” he tells her. “Now I spend my time just making rhymes of yesterday.” Three Dog Night had the hit, but the Nilsson original is the lonelier number. There’s a vulnerability to the vocal on Nilsson’s recording. And that’s before he even hits you with those chilling high notes on the outro.

3. “Everybody’s Talkin’” (1968)

This Fred Neil song became the mainstream breakthrough Nilsson needed after being featured on the “Midnight Cowboy” soundtrack, hitting No. 6 on Billboard’s Hot 100 and earning Nilsson his first Grammy. It’s a breezier arrangement than the Neil original, where those dreams of escape to a place “where the sun keeps shinin' through the pouring rain” seem unlikely at best. One possible reason the original is so damn sad? In an interview with the A.V. Club, actor Harry Dean Stanton says, “It was written about heroin, written on heroin … and probably performed on heroin, too!” Nilsson’s version is faster-paced, with a lilting quality to the guitar part and the string arrangement at the end. There’s sadness, too. You don’t dream of escape when you’re happy to be where you are. But it feels like a glimmer of hope is sitting right behind that patch of clouds in Nilsson’s version. And those high notes he hits at the end of the song -- on “I won’t let you leave” -- are just breathtaking.

4. “Jump into the Fire” (1971)

Why does this feel like the birth of New Wave arriving way too early to be heard as that, from the cavernous echo on that vocal track to the jittery funk bass Tina Weymouth may have studied to that insistent post-Stooges piano? I suppose that’s what being ahead of your time is all about. This song became the singer’s fifth Top 40 hit when cut in half for airplay, but the trance-inducing seven-minute version on the “Nilsson Schmilsson” album is the way to go, complete with a percussion break. I saw a writer for Pitchfork refer to the pulse of this record as “motorik,” a term coined to describe the repetitive forward momentum of classic Krautrock records. And it fits. It’s the Nilsson song LCD Soundsystem would one day take to covering for a reason.

5. “Without Her” (1967)

It gets off to an intimate start with just Nilsson alone on the mic, confiding in you. “I spend the night in a chair thinking she'll be there,” he begins. “But she never comes / And then I wake up and wipe the sleep from my eyes / And I rise to face another day / Without her.” That’s when the strings come in, a stately baroque-pop arrangement of the sort George Martin might have written for the Beatles. It’s after the heartbreaking bridge (“Such a beautiful thing but it's ended now / And it sounds like a lie / If I said I'd rather die”) that the other key component of the orchestration makes its first appearance -- a flute providing gorgeous counter-melody to the string part.

6. “Me and My Arrow” (1971)

The vibe is so specific to this song. It’s as though he invented his own brand of wistful just to build a universe in which this song could live. And the fact that it was written for a concept album/animated film/musical just makes it that much more intriguing. It’s sung in character by Oblio, the only round-headed person in Pointed Village, where everything must have a point, to his best friend, a dog named Arrow. It’s a beautiful tribute to friendship in general (“Wherever we go, everyone knows, it’s me and my Arrow”) and despite being tied to a made-for-TV movie with an actor best remembered for his role as Bobby Brady providing the voice of Oblio, the hooks were undeniable enough that it hit No. 34 on Billboard’s Hot 100.

7. “Cuddly Toy” (1967)

The piano intro is intoxicating, splitting the triplets between the right and left hand. Then the horns kick in, as punchy as any pop song this side of the Beatles’ “Got to Get You Into My Life” (although the bridge reminds me more of “Girl”). As for the lyrics, they’re so casually dismissive, it’s hard to believe he was able to sell this to the Monkees. Consider the opening line: “You’re not the only cuddly toy that was ever enjoyed by any boy,” which is followed by “You’re not the only choo-choo train that was left out in the rain / The day after Santa came.” It’s brilliant, really. Mean but brilliant. Dylan would be proud. The bridge is especially withering.

8. “Gotta Get Up” (1971)

This was the opening track on “Nilsson Schmilsson,” Nilsson’s finest hour as a pop sensation. And he’s rarely sounded more McCartneyesque, by which I mean no disrespect. McCartney is a Nilsson fan, and he had to enjoy the echoes of his best work in one of Nilsson’s most infectious songs. What really gives this track its character is the juxtaposition of jaunty piano and bittersweet lyrics about the fact that none of us are getting any younger. The title refers to the reason he’s gotta get home before the morning comes. “Gotta let the people know I’m gonna be late,” he explains in a crushing admission that responsibilities will overtake us all. “There was a time,” he admits on the bridge, “where we could dance until a quarter to 10 / We never thought it would end then / We never thought it would end.”

9. “1941” (1967)

The year in the title is also the year Nilsson was born, which is why this would have been his 75th birthday. And the lyrics tell the tale of Nilsson’s own heartbreaking formative years. In the opening verse, he reveals, “Well, in 1941 a happy father had a son / And by 1944, the father walks right out the door.” As the song goes on, he has his own son and, depressingly enough, repeats the cycle of abandonment. It’s a poignant self-portrait/character study that could hold its own against Ray Davies’ finest hours. And the orchestration is a dream.

10. “Mr. Tinker” (1968)

Another Davies-esque character study that filters his unerring ear for a timeless melody through yet another richly orchestrated chamber-pop arrangement, “Mr. Tinker” tells the story of a tailor with a neon sign above his door who cooked his meals and tried to sleep in a two-room shack directly behind the store. The big reveal comes next. “Above his dresser was a picture of his wife who passed away.” Now, his only child has moved away, and he’s forced to deal with customers whose lives just make him bitter. As Nilsson sings, “It isn’t easy for a tailor when there’s nothing left to sew / He wishes he could mend his life but then there’s no one left to show.” It’s his “Eleanor Rigby,” only Mr. Tinker doesn’t get to die before the song is over. He’s left behind to watch the world move on as Nilsson asks, “But who needs Mr. Tinker when all the suits you buy are ready-made.”

11. “Coconut” (1971)

The most amazing thing about this song is that it never changes chords. Not even once. And yet it went on to become on to become one of the singer’s biggest hits, in part because that sense of repetition only adds to its hypnotic charms, in part because the melodies he layers over top of that one chord are so contagious and in part because it’s just a lot of loopy fun, among his more eccentric moments (which is truly saying something). He even changes voices as he changes characters, playing a narrator, the girl the put the lime in the coconut and drank ’em both up and the doctor she calls to relieve her bellyache. He advises her, of course, to put the lime in the coconut and drink them both together.

12. “Wasting My Time” (1969)

The melody is Nilsson at his dreamiest, the pacing just too slow enough to underscore the unassuming beauty of that melody while doing much to reinforce the essence of the lyrics. He’s wasting his time, thinking he’s on the right track, thinking he’ll make his comeback without necessarily lifting a finger to set those comeback wheels in motion. Then, he hits you with that whistling solo, which sounds exactly like the sort of solo a person might whistle while wasting his time.

13. “Don’t Forget Me” (1974)

Lennon produced this melancholy ballad for “Pussy Cats,” and you can definitely hear that in the mix, but it’s that tortured vocal that defines it, Nilsson singing to a former spouse. He can’t resist a punchline, following “I'll miss you when I'm lonely” with “I'll miss the alimony, too.” But he’s not joking on that chorus, pleading “Don't forget me,” telling her “You know I think about you / Let me know you think about me, too.” But the song’s most devastating moments is the verse, “And when we’re older and full of cancer / It doesn’t matter / Now, come on, get happy / ‘Cause nothing lasts forever / But I will always love you.”

14. “Think About Your Troubles” (1971)

The line “Now everybody knows that when a body decomposes” is so quintessentially Nilsson. But then, so is the song itself, a highlight of “The Point!” that does its best to put your troubles in perspective by following your teardrops through the ecosystem. “You can take your teardrops and drop them in a teacup,” he advises. “Take them down to the riverside and throw them over the side.” From there, your tears are swept up in the current and eaten by fish, who are eaten by fish, who are eaten by a whale, who dies and decomposes. Now, everybody knows that when a body decomposes the basic elements are given back to the ocean. And just like that, he puts us right back in your kitchen, where that water comes out of your faucet, and you make yourself some tea. You’re probably still crying, though. This song is Nilsson at his finest as a storyteller.

15. “Bath” (1968)

Nilsson’s upper register is put to brilliant use on this horn-driven highlight of “Aerial Ballet.” That note that seems to last forever? There aren’t a lot of singers who could pull that off, and fewer still who could make it just feel like a natural part of the song, which finds a love-struck Nilsson “leaving here this morning … going home to take my bath … with a smile upon my face.” And he rhymes that last detail with one of my favorite lines in Nilsson’s catalog: “I’m beginning to think there’s hope for the human race.”

16. "Mr. Richland's Favorite Song" (1968)

The fleeting nature of fame provides the backdrop for this richly detailed portrait of a fading star. In the opening verse, "The fans he had were younger than he and they loved to scream his name / They'd leave at the end of the third show, go home to talk of the fun." By the second verse, "They'd leave at the end of the second show, go home to talk of the fun / For most of the fans were married by then, so they had to be in by one." And it only gets sadder from there. In the last verse, he's taken a job in "a bar where yesterday is king," and they'll stay for an hour or so but the time has come "to call your fans by name."

17. "Many Rivers to Cross" (1974)

If that majestic string arrangement sounds familiar to the uninitiated, that's because Lennon, who produced this song for "Pussy Cats," reused it (to brilliant effect) on his own hit single, "#9 Dream." It's a Jimmy Cliff song but Nilsson's tortured vocal takes it somewhere different altogether, signing off with a primal scream that sounds like something Lennon would have done on "Plastic Ono Band." (Or is that Lennon?) If you're not feeling what he's feeling when he sings, "And this loneliness won't leave me alone / It's such a drag to be on your own," you're may be dead inside. I'd get that looked at.

18. "Daddy's Song" (1968)

Another song inspired by his father walking out on him, it couches Nilsson's pain and disappointment in an upbeat Ragtime-flavored treatment. "Years ago, I knew a man," he sings. "He was my mother's biggest fan." And for the first two verses, he recalls what sounds like an idyllic childhood. Midway through the third verse, though, his daddy goes away. "And how the mother did explain," he sings, "Trying to take away the pain / But, he just couldn't understand / That his father was not a man / And it all was just a game." Despite the introspective nature of the lyrics, this was written for the Monkees, who included it on "Head."

19. "Good Old Desk" (1967)

In which the songwriter pays tribute to his desk in lyrics clearly colored by those feelings of abandonment that led to "1941" and "Daddy's Song." "Such a comfort to know it's got no place to go," Nilsson sings. "It's always there / It's the one thing I've got." But is it really just about his good old desk? It's been suggested that the title is an anagram for God and Nilsson said as much when he appeared on "Playboy After Dark" (although he later claimed he had been kidding). The lyrics definitely hold up to a spiritual interpretation. And if not? I like it as a song about a desk just fine.

20. "Don't Leave Me" (1968)

The breezy pop sophistication of this richly orchestrated track recalls the best of Bacharach and David with a hint of Jimmy Webb. It also features some of Nilsson's most poetic lyrics. "The willow weeps and having wept can weep no more," he sings. "But still it cries for me / It cries in sympathy / It knows that you are gone."

Honorable mentions

21."Mournin' Glory Story"

22. "Open Your Window"

23. "Vine Street"

24. "All I Think About Is You"

25. "(Thursday) Here's Why I Did Not Go to Work Today"

26. "It's Been So Long"

27. "Spaceman"

28. "You're Breakin' My Heart"

29. "Who Done It?"

30. "The Wailing of the Willow."



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