# Who is Harry Neilsson?



## Starbuck (Jun 15, 2007)

Just watched this movie Fri night. I highly recommend it. Sadly, I had no idea who he was either. When I heard him sing I thought " oh THAT guy" he was all over the radio when I was a kid. Great movie about a supremely talented and tragic man.

How come no one Nails Cee Lo for ripping him off????


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## GuitarsCanada (Dec 30, 2005)

Starbuck said:


> Just watched this movie Fri night. I highly recommend it. Sadly, I had no idea who he was either. When I heard him sing I thought " oh THAT guy" he was all over the radio when I was a kid. Great movie about a supremely talented and tragic man.
> 
> How come no one Nails Cee Lo for ripping him off????


I think you mean Nilsson. This was a big hit for him

[video=youtube;tLDMh8F8plI]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tLDMh8F8plI&feature=related[/video]


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## mrmatt1972 (Apr 3, 2008)

They have a documentary about him on Netflix. He seemed to be musically (and intellectually) brilliant but so painfully shy that live performance was extremely difficult for him. His early life was very hard, and he had serious substance abuse issues that affected his later career. It got sad really, but in the end he kicked, and raised a loving family. Heart disease took him before he could complete his final album.

Interesting side notes:

Both Mama Cass and Kieth Moon died in his London Apartment (he wasn't there either time).
He and Kieth Moon made a really bad movie together.
He and John Lennon were drug buddies during Lennon's "lost weekend" period, they made an album which resulted in Nilsson destroying one of his vocal chords
They also had an infamous night out together where they heckled the Smothers Brothers.


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## Robert1950 (Jan 21, 2006)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_Nilsson


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## davetcan (Feb 27, 2006)

Who the hell is Cee Lo, LOL

I guess that shows our age differences. Nilsson I know 



Starbuck said:


> Just watched this movie Fri night. I highly recommend it. Sadly, I had no idea who he was either. When I heard him sing I thought " oh THAT guy" he was all over the radio when I was a kid. Great movie about a supremely talented and tragic man.
> 
> How come no one Nails Cee Lo for ripping him off????


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## mhammer (Nov 30, 2007)

Harry Nilsson was a fabulous songwriter, on the same order as Jimmy Webb, or any of the greats who penned "American standards", like Arlen, Yarburg, Berlin, Porter, et al.

Anybody familiar with the animated film he scored the music for called "The Point"? Lovely film for kids.

Flaming Lips or somebody outrageous like that should do a remake of "Put the Lime in the Coconut", so Harry's family can get some royalties.

I had completely forgotten that he had done a tune on the "Stay Awake" album. That album is a brilliant piece of work from the always brilliant Hal Willner. If you think an album that has the Replacements doing "Cruela De Ville", Aaron Neville singing the theme from the Mickey Mouse Club, Los Lobos doing a tune from The Jungle Book, and Tom Waits doing a dark industrial Brechtian version of "Hi Ho (its off to work we go)" might be interesting, do check it out. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stay_Awake_(album)

At first I couldn't understand why you had mentioned Cee Lo Green, but then a Youtube search reminded of the wonderfully sensitive paean to relationship stress entitled "You're breaking my heart". It was one of those things they'd play on FM radio at the time.....real late.

I don't take anything away from Cee Lo. First, I can't imagine he's even heard the song; just not his niche. Second, even if he had, it's a different sentiment being expressed, albeit with the same signature line. I mean, cripes, if we accused anyone who ever had a song including "sha la la" or "baby, baby" with ripping off whomever was recorded before.....Better yet, would rap even exist if calls to wave one's hands in the air (as if you.....just...*didn't*...care), or requesting "all the ladies in the house" to say something in particular, were deemed to be trademarked and unusable by anyone beyond the original artist?

Breakup songs, where the break-ee expresses a sour grapes sentiment are not uncommon, but not unknown. WE can even stick Dan Hicks (and his Hot Licks) rendering of "How can I miss you when you won't go away" in that group. Cee Lo is not the first singer with something on the charts to break that particular lexical barrier, but it's not HIS crime. It's the short memory of the industry and the audience it caters to that shoulders that particular sin. When Nilsson did it, no one saw fit to record an alternate "acceptable" version. I suppose we can chalk that up to the rather limited access to music youth had at the time, such that they would have been unlikely to perceive any irony whatsoever in a commercial airplay version the way they presently do with "forget you". In the absence of that sort of aftermarket, I imagine the record execs went "Hmmm, best forgotten" and hoped for another monster tearjerker like "Without You". Besides, the only folks who would have known about it were only able to hear it via the late night FM jocks who would play it, back when they would also play 17-minute album sides. There would have been no market for a-little-bit-dangerous-but-mostly-safe remakes. Maybe they'd bleep out a word (like the "damn" in the old David Clayton Thomas tune "Brainwashed"), but that was as far as they'd go. The choices were basically, a wee bit of scrubbing, outright banning, or being moved to the margins, which is where Nilsson's tune ended up.


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## Starbuck (Jun 15, 2007)

GuitarsCanada said:


> I think you mean Nilsson. This was a big hit for him
> 
> [video=youtube;tLDMh8F8plI]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tLDMh8F8plI&feature=related[/video]


Yeah that's it!!! The thing is, as soon as I heard him sing, the lights went on!!!!


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## ronmac (Sep 22, 2006)

The netflix doc is worth seeing. 

Count me as a fan, owning most of his recorded work. Angelic voice (before the scream off with Lennon) and a killer songwriter. Flew high, fell far....


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## Milkman (Feb 2, 2006)

davetcan said:


> Who the hell is Cee Lo, LOL
> 
> I guess that shows our age differences. Nilsson I know



Exactly what I was thinking, LOL.


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## John Watt (Aug 24, 2010)

mhammer, uh, yeah, yeah... you typed it, I read it, and I don't think I can add to it.

You're so knowledgable about Harry Nilsson, I'm wondering if you're too legit to quit.

Cee Lo might be the new Elton John. If you don't think so, uh, "forget it".


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## mhammer (Nov 30, 2007)

There's a lot of pictures people link to that don't show up on my screen at work, due to filters. If you are referring to Cee Lo's appearance on the Grammys with Gwyneth Paltrow, and his "feathered thing" with the Muppets, I'd agree. But then every time I've seen him appear on a show, he always has fun with his persona. Whether that's his decision or someone else's, I can't tell. First time I saw him was on either SNL or Letterman, doing "Crazy". He and the rest of the band were all dressed like yacht captains, with hats, blazers and white pants. The next time I saw him and Danger Mouse doing "Crazy", they were all dressed like they were in some private boy's school, with pleated short pants. Not much different than Outkast dressed as lawn jockeys, though, IMHO. What he did recently on SNL, employing a sort of James Bond intro with the "naughty silhouettes" was very cool. If he's the actual brains behind that stuff, very hip and bright guy. That entire appearance was better than anything I've ever seen come from GaGa, Kanye, or Madonna.

Most folks will tell me that I'm too full of s**t to quit (wink, wink, nudge, nudge). But thanks.


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## Alex Csank (Jul 22, 2010)

Nilsson Schmilsson, Son of Schmilsson... Me and my Arrow, You're Breaking My Heart, Lime in the Coconut... wow! Great stuff from a very great composer, musician and artist. I have always loved his stuff.


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## mhammer (Nov 30, 2007)

While we're on the topic of songwriters who deserve our respect but never got enough of it, how about a little love for Warren Zevon?

My wife bought me a copy of the documentary "Keep Me in Your Heart" a few years back, and its wonderful. Bruce Springsteen records his solo to "Disorder in the House" in the control booth, but rocks sooo hard, with Zevon just sitting there soaking it all in and loving it.


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