Comments on: NILSSON – “Without You”

By: thefatgit

thefatgit — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 16:00:26 +0000

Calm as a millpond opening verse, bridge into building chorus, building second verse, dramatic drum solo, all hell breaks loose in the next chorus, climactic payoff…we’re in Power Ballad territory here. Funny how I never twigged it before as I felt it was a purely ’80s onwards thing, but “Baker Street” and “All By Myself” fit the mould as well. Jeez! I must be stating the obvious to some, but that thought never occurred to me before.

By: inakamono

inakamono — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 19:08:50 +0000

@ 39 Strictly, one Welshman and one Liverpudlian, I think…

Badfinger seem to be one of those bands that subsisted mainly on litigation and never did much of note commercially. Their original of this song tries to combine the sounds of the Beatles and Procul Harum, achieving little of either. Nilsson at least chopped all the excess dross away and succeeded in locating the song’s soul.

At the time, aged 12, I could see the song’s quality — but it wasn’t TRex or Slade, and it got boring pretty quickly. But looking back now, on the cusp of hitting 50, I wonder if anyone in all those years has expressed this emotion better?

Sad that a great songwriter gets remembered for a cover version…

By: Waldo

Waldo — Sat, 24 Oct 2009 10:03:56 +0000

“Without You” was written by a couple of Welshmen who committed suicide (in separate incidents) and was sung by a guy who pretty much drunk himself to death. If that isn’t cheerful enough, Pans People were obliged to provide a routine for the record, which the girls have since admitted was one of their less sure-footed performances for the sole reason that it was entirely inappropriate, its chart position notwithstanding. They were much better tackling “The Resurrection Shuffle”, an absoluely belter of a record, which we should have been celebrating in this project.

But cards on the table, I thought “Without You” was one of the best number ones of the year, even though it is certainly a “downer”. I used to imagine poor old Harry standing on the old wooden chair in a damp empty bedsit, washing piling up in the sink, which naturally sports a dripping tap, mournfully connecting a skipping rope up to the light fitting…well, you get the idea. The record also has the benefit of not over-egging. Harry simply reprises the first part of the opening verse and then goes sobbing into the chorus and then…and then kicks the chair away. He can’t live. That will learn the bitch!

Just a word about “Coconut”, the bizarre follow up, also from “Schmilsson”. What a contrast that was. It was not a big hit and enabled me to wander around telling people to “put the lime in the cooking and see me in the morning” knowing that they wouldn’t have a clue about what I was referring to. Of course clever little Waldo did himself no good in this respect and I was (ahem!) referred. “Doctor! DOCCCC-TORR!!!!”

Happy Days!

By: AndyPandy

AndyPandy — Sat, 17 Jan 2009 12:40:05 +0000

I think you could say the same about his ‘Everybody’s Talking’ too (from 1968 but a hit in 1969)which I think has a certain timelessness and impossible to place timewise that could have come from anytime in the past 40 years.
I’ll never really know if I’d have liked ‘Without you’ more than I do (which isn’t much) as from when I was about 7 this record was on the radio seemingly every every other record for what seemed like years – it seemed to crop up what seemed like at least twice on every car journey/edition of Junior Choice/Family Favourites etc you name it – the words ‘ubiquitous’ and ‘heavy rotation’ don’t do it justice.

By: Matthew

Matthew — Sat, 17 Jan 2009 07:01:46 +0000

Have to add my voice to the “should have been a 10″ chorus – I’ve been a defender of the laid-on-thick, more sentimental end of the spectrum since 1952 but this has any heartstring-tugging power that any of its predecessors his while being quite possibly *actually really good* at the same time. As you say, the arrangement is thoroughly modern, you could do it just this way in 2008 and no one would accuse you of wheeling out an obvious period piece. Almost 40 years, which is to say two generations, on. When you think about it, that’s truly phenomenal.

By: peak

peak — Fri, 09 Jan 2009 19:17:02 +0000

re 32, it was beautiful, mainly because in context,and in tone, it transformed the meaning of the song – replacing the slip between acceptance and despair with a kind of collective affectionate shrug, making the song an answer to the question; why are we stood here in the freezing sleet, 200 miles from home, watching a terrible game of football? Because I can’t live (if living is without…insert team name here).

By: Mark G

Mark G — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 13:07:49 +0000

Amazed this got no mention:

Apparently, Badfinger were also in the same studio building as Harry (And JWebb, message #6, it seems), he said “oh do you want to hear this version I did of your song?”

I can only imagine the opengobs…

By: thevisitor

thevisitor — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 13:59:04 +0000

Re 32: Son of Schmilsson is undoubtedly flawed, but when it clicks, it’s pretty phenomenal. On I’d Rather Be Dead (from Son Of Schmilsson) he enlisted the Stepney and Pinner pensioners’ choir to sing lines like “I’d rather be dead/Than wet my bed” – resulting in a chorus that was both euphoric and heartbreaking. Lottery Song has an awkward sweetness about it which, for some reason, reminds me of early Woody Allen movies. Remember (Christmas) and Spaceman are also as strong as almost anything on his previous few albums.

Listening to the other (out-take) versions of Without You recorded by Nilsson, I suspect that what he nailed in the “proper” version was something he couldn’t have repeated, even if he wanted to. Given that he never played live, he didn’t need to. I think what also helped, getting into the rest of his back-catalogue, is the realisation that he never quite let rip in the same way with his other songs. More commonly, a playful underselling of his considerable talents was the Nilsson way.

By: lonepilgrim

lonepilgrim — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 11:50:37 +0000

Jeff @ #8 echoes my own relationship to this song – one of the first to engage/overwhelm my emotions – I still find it affecting to this day – 8 or 9 for me

By: wichita lineman

wichita lineman — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 09:14:50 +0000

Aged 7, I thought the opening line was “I can’t forget this evening, and your face as you were reading” which kinda sums up the chill of slow seperation in a dying relationship (I still prefer “reading” to “leaving”). A little like the too-clever “you read your Emily Dickenson and I my Robert Frost” in Simon & Garfunkel’s Dangling Conversation. Obviously I didn’t think of THAT when I was 7…

I heard that Nilsson had a fatal heart attack while in the dentists chair (maybe the dentist was playing a promo of Mariah’s version). Anyway, they left him in situ overnight planning to move his body in the morning. Unfortunately, Burbank was hit by an earthquake that night, and the chair, with Nilsson, was destined to be swallowed up by a crevice, never to be seen again.

Quite possibly this is a story thought up by Harry in advance of his premature death, in the same way that Richard Burton planned to have “Gone for a Burton” written on his gravestone (I don’t think he got his wish). Burton and Nilsson, both enormous talents who frittered their talents away. Harry’s post Schmilsson output is so disappointing, just the odd pearl (1977′s minor hit All I Think About Is You is a hushed, ghostly counter to Without You but just as alarming and intense). Sandman is The Medusa Touch, Son Of Schmilsson is Villain. Terrible waste. Enough to put you off the booze.

Re 31: The Ian Branfoot years – 92nd out of 92 for a while, in ’94/95 season I think. Saw a dire cup tie against Shrewsbury at Craven Cottage that year, but sadly missed the eerie Without You. Sounds beautiful.

By: peak

peak — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 01:00:55 +0000

Also sung by Fulham FC supporters. At least it was about 10 years ago, when I accompanied one of them to an away game at Wigan in the old 4th division; a horrible january day, an exposed terrace, halfway through the second half with Fulham 1-0 down the sleet began to drive directly into our faces, and about 50 fans began singing (at about half the pace of the recording) ‘I can’t live…’. Eerie, to say the least.

By: Danny

Danny — Thu, 17 Apr 2008 20:23:26 +0000

PS: Nilsson died of heart failure on January 15, 1994 – the same day Carey’s version was released in the US. Her version MAY have killed him.

By: Danny

Danny — Thu, 17 Apr 2008 20:08:45 +0000

Yeah… at For The Love of Harry they’ve got 4 Nilsson versions (including Italian and Spanish), Badfinger’s version and NO Mariah Carey. You can listen to the entire songs and/or download all. And don’t forget the bizarre story that goes along with the song. BOTH authors (Ham & Evans of Badfinger) committed suicide by hanging.

By: Jake

Jake — Sun, 02 Dec 2007 18:35:32 +0000

You can hear and download Badfinger’s version and a few versions by Nilsson (including a piano demo) at For The Love Of Harry
http://fortheloveofharry.blogspot.com/2007/11/without-you-19701971.html

By: jules

jules — Sat, 23 Jun 2007 16:07:25 +0000

Wasn’t around when this came out, but from later radio play I remember that it towered above other ballads from the period. Don’t rate Badfinger as Beatles imitators — their songs were beautifully made, and this one proves it. Nilsson sent it into orbit; an 8 or 9 definitely.

By: Barry

Barry — Wed, 04 Apr 2007 20:36:51 +0000

If I remember correctly, Heart did a pretty respectable job with “Without You” back in the late seventies – early eighties. I haven’t heard it for a while, but I remember thinking Ann (or was it Nancy) did it justice. The Mariah version makes me want to cringe. BB

By: Mike Jones

Mike Jones — Mon, 02 Apr 2007 11:43:08 +0000

My experiences are similar to Jeff W’s – not quite the first record to make me cry (that was Chirpy Chirpy Cheep Cheep – “Where’s your mama gone?” or possibly the spooky coda to Ernie) but, at the age of four, it soundtracked a terrifying dream in which our window cleaner kidnapped my mum and dad. Perhaps it was on the radio downstairs as my brother got ready for school.

Well into adulthood, it had the power to reduce me to mulch (much to my wife’s amusement; we once had to leave a bar in Brussels where it was playing on the jukebox). For years, I kept it at arm’s length, even as I became a bit of a fan of Nilsson’s other work, not daring to buy the album from which it came. Then, a couple of years ago, I picked up Nilsson Schmilsson cheap in Fopp. I got through track 6 (and track 11 too) without blubbing which maybe says something about what happens when you isolate the song at the centre of a web of accumulated memories and experience it as a fresh audio event – the act of deliberately listening to a record being so different to encountering it by chance.

By: jimmymod

jimmymod — Thu, 29 Mar 2007 06:19:59 +0000

At the very least an 8, possibly a 9 or 10 depending on how you felt abt. The Rules Of Attraction

By: Waldo

Waldo — Wed, 28 Mar 2007 21:46:16 +0000

I can’t live with any of this…

By: o sobek!

o sobek! — Fri, 23 Mar 2007 16:36:09 +0000

Marcello would The Beatles : Badfinger :: The Kinks : Big Star (and maybe The Stones : NY Dolls) be fair enough? I think the only Badfinger I know are “Come and Get It” and “Day After Day”, both of which are incredibly Beatles, albeit in pretty different ways.

By: Marcello Carlin

Marcello Carlin — Tue, 20 Mar 2007 16:28:12 +0000

No. McCartney gave them “Come And Get It” (and if his own take on Anthology 3 is anything to go by, the entire backing track) to give their career a boost. Nothing else in their catalogue really sounds like that, though; if anything the likes of “No Matter What” suggest a British Big Star.

By: Rosie

Rosie — Tue, 20 Mar 2007 16:17:11 +0000

Wasn’t Badfinger the result of McCartney attempting to clone himself?

By: wwolfe

wwolfe — Mon, 19 Mar 2007 19:05:48 +0000

Badfinger’s original sounds like a demo. (It also is a good example of the dangers of imitating the Beatles: even if you’re a decent band, you won’t do the Beatles as well as the Beatles.) This re-make sounds like what a very talented producer, singer, and group of studio musicians can do with a demo. In addition to what others have noted – Harry’s emotional tact, Perry’s care with the sonic details – I’d tip my hat to drummer Jim Gordon. His descending drum fill leading into the climactic “Can’t live” – the one where Harry jumps up an octave – is perfect.

By: major clout

major clout — Sat, 17 Mar 2007 18:25:54 +0000

10 for me as well, perfect execution. almost as good as 10 tacos

By: Rosie

Rosie — Sat, 17 Mar 2007 10:32:55 +0000

On the whole I agree about original versions, but this should-have-been-a-ten-imho is one of the exceptions. As was another of my should-have-been-a-ten-imhos, Grapevine .

It’s something to do with adding something strikingly different, and executing it perfectly, so that something that was originally latent in the song is brought to the fore.

I can just about remember the Badfinger original, and also hearing this and realising that what I just described is exacly what happened.