“Awful”: Why did Harry Nilsson hate his hit song ‘Without You’?
The parties in Laurel Canyon were a breeding ground for creatives to exchange thoughts, ideas, and even sounds.
Most of the time, musicians would come across different songs, many of which seemed to stem from the same melting pot of inspiration that made them sound like the same artist had written them all. This was the first time Harry Nilsson came across ‘Without You’, the starkly un-Nilsson song that he initially thought was written by The Beatles.
Nilsson’s legacy has always been strongly attached to his abilities as a singer-songwriter. He even helped to support and boost the careers of some of music’s finest names, from John Lennon to The Ronettes. However, from the beginning, it wasn’t difficult to spot a Nilsson-penned song, considering how he sought to shun the topic of love in his songs and instead lean into more whimsical themes inspired by existential lamentation.
When Nilsson first came across ‘Without You’, it’s no wonder that he mistakenly thought it was by the Fab Four. Although the song, which was Badfinger’s at the time, had emerged from Apple Records and been produced by two members of The Beatles’ entourage – Geoff Emerick and Mal Evans – it also seemed to directly emulate the melodic and structural components firmly attached to the band, making it a hard decipher to the unsuspecting ear.
And when it crossed Nilsson’s path as one that could be his own, his initial instinct was to change it entirely. In fact, upon knowing he was delivering his own version, he sat down to play it far slower on the piano, giving it a darker and more considered feel than the earlier rhythms adopted by Badfinger. He wasn’t exactly the biggest fan from the get-go and had to be convinced to switch up its production so it didn’t come across as too mellow like he had wanted.
While he eventually agreed to add an orchestra to enhance its theatricality, a lot of convincing was needed to get Nilsson to a place where he was ready to venture so harshly into a direction he wasn’t immediately comfortable with. As producer Richard Perry recalled to Mojo in 2008: “I had to force him to take a shot with the rhythm section. Even while we were doing it, he’d be saying to the musicians, ‘This song’s awful.'”
However, Nilsson felt so averse to the song that he and Perry encountered heated friction, mainly because they couldn’t agree on it. This led to a last-minute meeting at the Dorchester Hotel, during which they tried to establish some common ground, to no avail.
Even when Perry tried to remind Nilsson that their partnership centred on Perry having creative control and Nilsson initially agreeing, he said, “Well, I lied”.
It’s a strong response to a song that became one of his biggest hits, but knowing Nilsson’s displeasure came from understanding his specific artistry makes the hostility a little more justified. After all, it wasn’t his song to begin with, and it came at a time when Nilsson was trying to set his legacy apart from the many names that had already defined the era, like The Beatles. On top of this, any enjoyment was overshadowed by the lurking knowledge that ‘Without You’ was a commercial device, which stood against everything Nilsson wanted to represent as an artist.
