The Harry Nilsson song that stands out in my mind is his version of the Badfinger song “Without You”, which went to Number 1 across the charts (U.S., Canada, UK, Australia, Ireland…) in 1971.
“Without You”
For a long time Harry Nilsson, who became close friends with the Beatles (in particular John Lennon, with whom he collaborated to produce the 1974 album Pussy Cats”, and Ringo Starr) was better known as a songwriter than a singer.
Especially among other artists, and many of his songs are more familiar in other versions, such as the Three Dog Night hit “One”.
Here is Harry Nilsson’s own version of his song “One”:
Nilsson, who died in 1994, was not only successful at providing other musicians with songs, he is also known in theatre and as a provider of film music.
Most well known here is perhaps his singing of “Everybody’s Talkin’” in the 1969 movie “Midnight Cowboy starring John Voight and Dustin Hoffman.
“Everybody’s Talkin’”:
Here are the opening scenes of “Midnight Cowboy” underscored by “Everybody’s Talkin’”:
Nilsson had actually written his Top Ten hit “I Guess The Lord Must Be In New York City” as a contender for the movie:
A few years ago (2006) there was a documentary “Who is Harry Nilsson? (And Why Is Everybody Talkin’ About Him)”.
I guess there is a reason “everybody’s talkin’” about him.
When I was about 16, I used to listen to Lobo over and over again. Songs like his big hit “Me And You And A Dog Named Boo”; “How Can I Tell Her About You” and “I’d Love You to Want Me”. Or “Stoney”, “Hope You’re Proud Of Me Girl”, “It Sure Took a Long, Long Time”, “Don’t Expect Me To Be Your Friend”, “Standing At The End Of The Line” and “Goodbye Is Just Another Word”.
Seems he had one hit after another in the early Seventies, and as I was looking through his songs, one after another came back to me.
The words, and the melodies.
I’m not going to comment on them individually, just let you listen and enjoy them one after another.
This was his first big hit, in 1971, “Me And You And A Dog Named Boo”:
“I’d Love You to Want Me”went to No. 2 on the U.S. singles charts in 1972:
“Don’t Expect Me To Be Your Friend” reached the Top Ten that year:
“It Sure Took a Long, Long Time” made it to the Top 30 the same year:
And in 1973 “How Can I Tell Her About You” did too:
In 1974 “Standing At The End Of The Line” peaked at 37:
The next three songs were album tracks –
“Stoney”:
“Hope You’re Proud Of Me Girl”:
“Goodbye Is Just Another Word”:
OK, so I did coment on (some of) them after all…
I must admit I was surprised how much I still like these songs.
I think it was 1978 on a trip to Germany, before I lived there, that I came across German band United Balls, whose 1981 album “Pogo In Togo” I would later acquire, with songs like “Blackbird”, Good Understanding”, “Gisela” and the title track “Pogo In Togo”.
What I of course couldn’t know was that I would later meet them and even sit with them at the dinner table a few years later. They were really nice, down to earth guys.
My first introduction to United Balls, who were founded in 1973, was an A5 leaflet I picked up somewhere, either in Munich or Berlin I think, in a pub, café or university dining room. Just a black and white piece of paper advertising a gig.
A few years later, living in Bamberg in Upper Franconia in the north of Bavaria (I am being quite specific here as the Franconians, while part of Bavaria politically, don’t consider themselves Bavarians!), I got a copy of the United Balls album “Pogo In Togo” on tape.
Can’t remember the circumstances, but I have it!
The tracks are both German and English, sometimes mixed up in the same song, and have a kind of staccato, more or less punk/New Wave sound. (The late Seventies and early Eighties were after all the period of Neue Deutsche Welle/NDW, or German New Wave.)
And then in either 1983 or early 1984, while working as a roadie for a local dance band, we were playing in a little place called Hollfeld, just south of the main road from Bamberg to Bayreuth.
We had two or three gigs there sharing the stage with well-known bands from Munich, such as Relax and Münchner Freiheit, and on this occasion United Balls.
Whereas the other acts came with all their gear and their own roadies (on one of these occasions one of our microphones disappeared), United Balls turned up on their own in a VW van, plugged their guitars into our amps and their drummer used our drum kit.
Simple but effective, and definitely economical – and sounded just as good.
Here’s the van (on this occasion photographed in Hamburg):
At first I could only find videos of two songs from that first album (two others followed), and a couple of others I didn’t know, but then I turned up a few more after all.
The title track from “Pogo In Togo” actually reached Number 1 in New Zealand and Australia – in Germany it “only” got to No. 14, but they still sold over a million copies altogether.
The chorus is very simple – Pogo in Togo – and one of several cover versions changed it to “Dio in Rio”.
Here is the original of “Pogo In Togo” (keep your eye on the blonde guitarist on the left, more about him later…):
Don’t you just love the elephants!
And because it’s such fun jumping up and down, here they are again playing in front of a live audience in 1980 (after a pause at the beginning):
“Good Understanding” was the second track from the first album, also in English:
Another English track from the debut album, “Blackbird” (there’s no sound until about 20 seconds into the video):
Short and sweet, “Gisela” is one of my favourites:
They look like maniacs here, but singer and guitarist Horst Lindhofer went on to found biotech company Trion Pharma in 1998, which together with Fresenius Biotech was the first German biotech firm to develop and market a “recombinant antibody” to treat cancer.
After an almost 20 year break the band is playing again, as documented in this brief German language video (the sound of the music recording is a little hairy):
And this live video from July 2013 (Tollwood Festival in Munich, three weeks after ZZ Top played there):
Another one that’s short and sweet but nice to jump about to, “Gänseblümchen” (“I’d like to pick daisies for my girl…”):
“No More Feelings” sounds like a bit like Gisela, but has it’s own charm:
I don’t remember this one, certainly another take on “Sur le pont d’Avignon”:
I can’t remember a time without Don Mclean singing “American Pie” and Vincent”, and yet it was only 1971 when the former was released and 1972 when it topped the charts for weeks on end.
Like the phrase it coined, “The day the music died”, it has been a part of our culture ever since.
Ladies and gentlemen – “American Pie”, the studio version:
And “American Pie” live in 1972:
Much quieter and more reflective, yet equally memorable, is Don McLean’s tribute to 19th century Dutch painter Vincent van Gogh, “Vincent (Starry, Starry Night)”:
Towards the end of the decade, in 1978, Don McLean released a cover of the Roy Orbison song “Crying”, which reached Number 1 in the UK two years later and No. 5 in the US:
Shortly after, McLean, who is also known for his covers of great artists, presented his version of Fifties classic “Since I Don’t Have You”:
Finally, here’s “Castles In The Air”, with pictures of the Brighton Pavilion, which remind me of pleasant days spent with family last summer in my parents’ home town on the south coast of England:
Going out on a limb here: I don’t actually know any songs by Australian rock band Cold Chisel, who I saw live in Auckland, New Zealand as support act for Alice Cooper in April 1977, so I’m just going to present what I have read is their signature tune from the Seventies, “Khe Sanh”, and another of their live favourites, which U2 apparently also played on Australian tours, “Goodbye (Astrid Goodbye)”.
While Jimmy Barnes is familiar to me, I hadn’t realised he was the singer for Cold Chisel, at least most of the time.
Anyway, as you will discover if you listen closely to the lyrics, “Khe Sanh” is a song about Australian Vietnam veterans:
Like Jimmy Barnes and the Adelaide band as a whole, this one’s kinda wild – “Goodbye (Astrid Goodbye):
The song and the singers still rock nearly 30 years later:
