#1011: gal costa - da maior importância (1973, live)

where harry nilsson’s medicine cabinet, django reinhardt’s accordion player and caetano veloso’s bathrobe meet it’s all blue smoke, wah-wah, musk, orchids, and untreated tobacco. it’s majorly important. 

10:57 am  •  18 September 2013  •  12 notes

#1004 - harry nilsson - without her & mrs. muir’s lovesong (1969)

this week ben greenman did a beautiful thing for the world, listing his ten favorite lesser-known nilsson songs to mark harry n.’s new 17-disc collection. did you know back in the 1970s the man made a series of googly-eyed videos for the songs on knnillssonn? i didn’t, and they’re remarkable, built just from synchronized blinks, acrobatic eyebrows, and poetically halfhearted lip-syncing to the coconut-topping who done it? and billie holiday-worthy all i think about is you.

but! ben’s new yorker list makes the gobstopping mistake of leaving off snow – the saddest thing to happen to that very sad song since it was left off desert island disc-worthy nilsson sings newman. 

i’m sorry to say it also cruelly ignores the 1969 season finale of the ghost & mrs. muir, a long forgotten sitcom starring the mom in blue velvet and the f.l.a.g. guy from knight rider. first harry plays his song without her, which i didn’t like until hearing this stripped-down fireside version. but then comes a love song he plays while channeling the titular 19th-century sea captain’s ghost love for a maine widow. really and truly.

“if i could link your arm in mine,” he sings, “the tropic sun, the emerald surf, the fleecy clouds like sugar spun, i’d happily forget each one, if i could link your arm in mine.”

how and why it’s so beautiful and loopy is hard to describe, and so is nilsson's song about his desk, his three-man everly brothers cover, his psychedelic children’s cartoons, his pussy cats ad, his hiccuping collaborations with different beatles, and the olive oyl ballad for popeye he wrote, maybe the best of them all.

12:26 pm  •  1 August 2013  •  7 notes

#887: harry nilsson - gotta get up (1971)

yes! here we are! it’s a new day, a new month, a new year! let’s do this! come quick, everybody! that’s the spirit! team! on three! stretch! up and at them! onwards! upwards! onwards and upwards!

12:16 pm  •  3 January 2012  •  14 notes

#839: harry nilsson and shelley duvall - he needs me (popeye, dir. robert altman, 1980)

i will commit vegetable-powered violence against any man who makes the uproarious claim that harry nilsson couldn’t reach the romantically glorious heights climbed by his friend and fellow hollywood songwriter randy newman. anyone who disagrees that he needs me is one of the finest wet-eyed moments in swelling cinematic sounds is a no better than alliterative oxblood oxheart, harry hotcash, j. wellington wimpy, bill barnacle, poopdeck pappy or george w. geezil.

blutos are blutos because they’re untouched by the words “love can turn the wheel.”

2:42 pm  •  7 September 2011  •  7 notes

#823: the everly brothers - cathy’s clown (1960, live)

elliott smith isn’t rhyming when he sings, “first the mic/ then a half cigarette/ singing cathy’s clown,” but it gets me every time anyhow. so does cathy’s clown, so does phil everly’s pickguard on the guitar he played when on t.v. the year it came out, and so does don’s.

see also: harry nilsson plays cathy’s clown and other everly brothers songs.

see also, also: the everly brothers play another song harry nilsson covered.

10:02 pm  •  1 August 2011  •  4 notes

#815: harry nilsson - the p.o.v. waltz (1971)

i apologize for the generally light posting recently, but i’m sure you’ll understand that i’ve been very busy with the first three weeks of a private 70-day celebration of harry nilsson’s 70th birthday. he would be celebrating it, too, if he hadn’t gone and done what keith moon and mama cass also once did in his bedroom, which is die. keeping in mind those departures, the 70-70 celebration consists of sitting down after a long day in the newsroom with a cold glass of water (with a slice of lemon) and watching a full viewing of the point!, the thinking man’s yellow submarine.

the duck dance hasn’t gotten tired yet, friends.

8:10 pm  •  5 July 2011  •  12 notes

#779: the everly brothers - walk right back (1961, tennessee ernie ford show)

this walk right back isn’t as good as harry nilsson’s, but nothing is. and being sad that something’s not nilsson is no way to live, friends–it’ll make you too blue. besides, the everly brothers did do the song first, which is something, and they have nice neckwear and completely respectable pompadours. plus there are two brief but wonderful glimpses of barely concealed rage after a harmony hiccup about half a minute in.

11:51 pm  •  18 April 2011  •  10 notes

#760: the monkees - wfld jingle bumper (1980)

have to remember to listen to more monkees, especially pisces, aquarius, capricorn & jones ltd., but especially headquarters. also should remember to listen to more turtles, who are even better, especially the turtles present the battle of the bands, which friends i am here to tell you is good. how was it that chip douglas was in the turtles and also produced the monkees–and was, by all accounts, besties with harry nilsson?

have to remember to email chip douglas. “chip,” i’ll say. “how are you!”

9:50 pm  •  16 March 2011  •  8 notes

#737: randy newman - god’s song (1972, old grey whistle test)

this is so self-evident that it doesn’t even need to be said, but it’s so true i’ll say it anyway: randy newman is one of the five best songwriters in the history of the world. “lord, no man is free” is the saddest line of the 1970s, but then so is “you must be crazy to put your faith in me.”

it’s also good to see old grey whistle test was hosted by bonnie “prince” billy’s  granddad.

9:23 pm  •  26 January 2011  •  22 notes

#716: pavement - major leagues (1999)

any common genius can include christmas-in-the-title christmas songs on his or her christmas mix (i.e. child’s christmas in wales by john cale, remember (christmas) by harry nilsson, in the hot sun of a christmas day by caetano veloso, merry christmas baby by chuck berry, christmas party by the walkmen, et al).

but it takes a special someone to include major leagues–the pretty song pavement made just as it was dying–on account of the line “magic christians chew the rind,” which really sounds like “magic christmas so sublime” if you’re not paying attention.

9:16 pm  •  23 December 2010  •  5 notes

being on vacation is like lounging around naked or eating grapes from the vine–totally resplendent, and wildly relaxing, and without a doubt something one should do only very rarely. these are the albums i’ve been listening to with my family while slouching around this week in massachusetts. not only are they perfect, especially at certain parts of a mid-august day, but they’re available for semi-legal download thanks to glorious blogs like zamboni soundtracks, which, thank god, is back from a long hiatus.

10:35am: harry nilsson’s nilsson schmilsson - i’m sure it’s been said before, but the gotta get up/driving along/early in the morning triptych must be one of history’s great album openers. while you’re showering there’s the coconut/let the good times roll/jump into the fire trio to put even more pep into your already peppy stepping.

12:15pm: ry cooder’s paradise and lunch - over sandwiches you learn everything you need to know about melody, martinis, r&b harmonies, divorcees, tobacco, cornets, and coroners. as if the album needed more heart, ry’s wife painted the cover.

3:30pm: tom zé’s todos os olhos - the only early-70s brazilian album that sounds like the sun, looks like an eye, and turns out to be a marble in an ass.

6:00pm: yo la tengo’s fakebook - sad like dusk, happy like dusk.

8:05pm: caetano veloso’s jóia - good for digestion, great for creaky joints, perfect for easing that summer evening choleric yellow bile feeling in the old gall bladder.

10:55pm: the monkees’ pisces, aquarius, capricorn & jones ltd. - beer drinking music at its finest. was cuddly toy written by 10:35am’s harry nilsson? it was! is pleasant valley sunday 1967’s best song about the suburbs? of course. doesn’t drummer mickey dolenz’s face remind you of my college friend alex nemser? how could it not!

12:05am: blind willie johnson’s sweeter as the years go by - if you meet the special someone who considers this semi-appropriate music to make love to your special someone by, you will know for sure that you have met a very sweet special someone.

11:22 pm  •  19 August 2010  •  12 notes

#610: ringo starr - back off boogaloo (1972)

today’s news that john lennon’s solo catalog is going to be reissued from his highness’ original masterings is wonderful, especially because his phil spector-debut plastic ono band is one of the universe’s great underrated masterpieces. it’s the only record anyone’s ever heard that’s unbearably crisp and wildly sludgy at the same time, just like it’s both sweet and very terrifying. and go listen to harry nilsson’s cover of isolation, too.

but when will ringo starr get the same ultra royal reissue treatment? the man was a sweet-faced, outer-space, hard core boogie ace. even marge simpson loves him! richard starkey deserves better: that the metropolitan museum of art is displaying his gold-plated snare drum for his 70th birthday is merely a start.

3:51 pm  •  29 June 2010  •  3 notes

#565: the monkees - cuddly toy (1967)

i hereby request to be the official in-house mix maker for johns hopkins behavioral biologist roland griffiths and his swiss neural imaging research colleagues, who are studying the recuperative powers of psilocybin. the new york times’ john tierney explains today that one subject in their ongoing experiments, who happens to be a retired clinical psychologist, took his hallucinogens, “put on an eye mask and headphones, and lay on a couch listening to classical music as he contemplated the universe… he ranks it among the most meaningful events of his life.” nothing against classical music at all–in fact, i bought a lovely pablo casals album yesterday–but if dr. griffiths is out there, i hope he strongly considers mixing in some harry nilsson-written monkees songs, plus a lot of george harrison-written beatles songs, and several serge gainsbourg-written serge gainsbourg songs.

10:43 am  •  12 April 2010  •  1 note

#506: harry nilsson - good old desk, together and skidoo (live on playboy after dark, 1968)

is it better to hear harry nilsson sing a beautiful lullaby about a desk, or to hear him convince young hugh hefner that its title is an anagram referring to “man’s modern concept about the meaning of god”? or is it better to hear him croon a swinging lounge love song about an ocean of sadness? or a song that’s made up of the credits to a druggy otto preminger film starring groucho marx, jackie gleason, slim pickens, peter lawford, frankie avalon and mickey rooney? no one can ever be sure.

7:42 pm  •  4 January 2010  •  2 notes