THE NILSSON POLL

To my ears it sounds like what Beck attempted and failed to get on Sea Change -- the mixture of grandeur and self-parody.

Great writeup!

"Save the Last Dance for Me" really is a stunner, isn't it?

The opening "Many Rivers To Cross" is another ace moment, with its plastic Ono vocal at the end, lonely & lost.

"Son Of" is Harry's "White Album", esp. with the jaw-dropping Hollywood Strings ending of "The Most Beautiful World in the World". <3 x 1000 Harry & Ringo's silly banter at the end.

First time I heard a Harry album, it really was like falling in love with someone. And pretty much every new album by him that I discover is the same way.

pussycats is very unfairly derided. but then I love walls and bridges and alcoholics too.

also, the strings sound just like number 9 dream.

just found out he recorded a bunch of yoko ono covers. kinda excited to listen

Odds you will have that opportunity: not good.

why not? they're available. i've got 'em anyway. i assume they're up on the for the love of harry blog. not life changing stuff, but pretty cool.

ya, already downloaded. listened to 2 clips and was really feeling them. loose demo jammy quality. but fun skanky reggae

yeah, not sure of the story behind the yoko covers -- were they demos? or was that an album that was never released? it's a cool concept, for sure -- wish that it had been fleshed out a bit more.

ah ok
From what we understand, Harry toyed with the idea of recording an album of Yoko Ono covers himself, before the idea would eventually morph into the various artists project, Every Man Has A Woman. The 1984 album included three Nilsson interpretations of Yoko's songs, "Silver Horse," "Dream Love" and "Loneliness." And, while the idea of a popster like Nilsson covering the sometimes difficult music of Yoko Ono was daring (to say the least), Harry's desire seemed to be a sincere notion, not necessarily designed to curry favor with Lennon - as might be suggested by some. In fact, many of Harry's demo arrangements seem like natural extensions of Yoko's (and/or John's) ideas. Perhaps Harry was attracted to Mrs. L's simplistic song craft (as it happens, a Nilsson trademark) or maybe he just enjoyed a challenge. Regardless, Nilsson did seem inspired by Ms. Ono's music. Four of the tracks posted here are Harry's raw, unreleased demos, including a just surfaced version of "Listen, The Snow Is Falling," that's far superior to any other available version. We've also included an edited, 4 minute rehearsal of Harry (and band) working on Yoko's "Yang Yang," at A&R Studios in NYC (listen to the entire 14 minute live session here). Harry's rare version of "Never Say Goodbye" is a fully formed studio recording that was officially issued in 1995 (the year after he died) on the 4-track promo CD, New York Rock - Never Say Goodbye. Which is, no doubt, a return tribute from Yoko. Harry's official contributions to Every Man Has A Woman are posted over here. Download all six of the project's "demos" HERE.

http://fortheloveofharry.blogspot.com/2010/09/yoko-ono-demos-1984-updated.html

Consider me schooled.

Every Man Has A Woman is out of print, but you can find stray tracks on YouTube. Rosanne Cash recorded a shattering cover of "Nobody Sees Me Like You Do."

[also -- minimoog covers? intriguing ...]

Just realized I never did link these. I lovingly called them Switched On Schmilsson:

https://soundcloud.com/the-me/daddys-song

https://soundcloud.com/the-me/jump-into-the-fire

https://soundcloud.com/the-me/without-her

BTW, that "For the Love of Harry" site has the quad mix of Pussy Cats -- not something I normally care about that much, but it has a version of "Don't Forget Me" with a vocal that was recorded before he blew out his voice. It's awesome -- the other mixes are really great, too:

http://fortheloveofharry.blogspot.com/2007/04/pussy-cats-1974.html

I don't see the quad mix for anything but "Old Forgotten Soldier", and a dead link to a mediafire rip of the whole album. I'd love to hear that early mix of "Don't Forget Me", probably the last great Nilsson song.

The Mediafire link isn't dead.

In that I pulled it down last night.

I can access and download the familiar stereo mix, but the quad mix comes back with "permission denied". Maybe i'll have to try a different ISP or spoof accessing it from a different country?

Minimoog versions?

Bumping this for later...

They're cool! Bravo to Naive Teen Idol. Funny how this version somehow brings out "Jump Into the Fire's" basic "Land of 1,000 Dances" DNA, which Nilsson's version absorbs in shrieks and dementia.

Haha love those switched on versions

Thanks, guys! After these, I started doing Switched On covers came of songs I played for my kids that they liked -- so I did a few Beach Boys and Tommy Roe songs before I moved on to sad robot covers using vocoder. But that's probably for another (shamelessly promotional) thread ...

At any rate, I realized I forgot to upload to Soundcloud some very important artwork that I commissioned for this Nilsson songs:

https://www.icloud.com/sharedalbum/#B05GDdyTvGVRClI;21DA3FDD-CD73-46E1-8262-9B14C6B60285

Fucking iCloud:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/c3xri6x4hxudb6o/Switched%20On%20Schmilsson.001.jpg?dl=0

Fucking Dropbox:

http://i.imgur.com/Tw1LiB3.jpg

Yay!

hahah, nice

poking around in your soundcloud, cool stuff overall for the record

Belated thanks, Doc C -- it's not quite a career but probably more than a hobby.

So, is the "For the love of Harry" totally gone now?

its right here no? http://fortheloveofharrynilsson.tumblr.com/

son of schmilsson is way better than it's predecessor. this poll is junk!

Well, as that page says, there was a blogspot..

But, that's nice too.

Yeah I like Son Of the best nowadays. Really feels like a second White Album, esp with Ringo saying goodbye at the end and all.

What a buncha good albums.

Re 1: True

Glad The Point managed to get in under the wire.