Harry Nilsson's Unreleased 1973 Sessions

In the months following A Little Touch of Schmilsson in the Night, Harry Nilsson entered a period of uncertain recording activity. In this article, I discuss Nilsson’s recording sessions toward the end of 1973. 

In the liner notes for the Camden Deluxe and Buddha Records CD releases of Pussy Cats, Curtis Armstrong discusses a track list from 1973 written by Nilsson. He writes:

"He had been recording but without direction. A track list from this period in Nilsson's hand surfaced recently and it's an interesting document. Of the twenty titles listed, four (All My Life, Black Sails, Don’t Forget Me and Save The Last Dance For Me) were to wind up on Pussy Cats; seven (Turn Out The Light, I Never Thought I’d Get This Lonely, Lean On Me, Flying Saucer Song, Down By The Sea, Daybreak and What’s Your Sign) would appear on later albums; three were listed as unfinished, (Had To Say No, Keep On Rowing, and A Ring A Ring) and three exist only as rough demos (Sit On My Face, Happy Birthday Richard Perry and Victoria). Of the remaining titles, one is illegible, one (Bad Times) is heavily crossed through with a pen and the last (Animal Farm) was finally recorded by Nilsson during his final sessions almost twenty years later."

Here is the list of songs in the order from the above quote:

1. "All My Life"
2. "Black Sails"
3. "Don't Forget Me"
4. "Save the Last Dance for Me"
5. "Turn Out the Light"
6. "I Never Thought I'd Get This Lonely"
7. "Lean On Me"
8. "Flying Saucer Song"
9. "Down By the Sea"
10. "Daybreak"
11. "What's Your Sign"
12. "Had To Say No"
13. "Keep On Rowing"
14. "A Ring A Ring"
15. "Sit On My Face"
16. "Happy Birthday Richard Perry"
17. "Victoria"
18. "(Illegible)"
19. "Bad Times"
20. "Animal Farm"

"Sit On My Face" was later known on bootlegs and official releases as "I Want You to Sit on My Face." 

"Happy Birthday Richard Perry" is an apparent novelty song for Nilsson's then producer Richard Perry. It is unknown is such a song would have actually been considered for an album. 

The 2013 box set The RCA Albums Collection reveals specific recording dates for some 1973 tracks, placing them in June through August of that year, except for “Daybreak” which was recorded in February. Various Nilsson bootlegs also have recordings that are presumably from these sessions. Aside from this, little is known of these 1973 sessions. 

I would hate for this track list to exist only in the liner notes of out-of-print CDs, but not much can be said of what we know so little about. In lieu of making assumptions, I think it will be interesting to dissect the list itself and see what insights can be gained. What follows are various reductions of the list.

 

Listen to one of my favorite 1973 Nilsson recordings, “Save the Last Dance for Me”:

 

Songs With Actual 1973 Takes Available

1. "Black Sails" (recorded 20 June 1973)
2. "Don't Forget Me" (recorded 21 August 1973)
3. "Save the Last Dance for Me" (recorded 10 July 1973)
4. "Turn Out the Light" (recorded 22 June 1973)
5. "Down By the Sea" (recorded June 1973-ish)
6. "Daybreak" (recorded 17 February 1973)
7. "What’s Your Sign" (date unknown)
8. "Sit On My Face" (recorded 20 June 1973)
9. "Happy Birthday Richard Perry" (date unknown)

Two 1973 versions of "Black Sails" exist: the officially released Pussy Cats CD bonus track version with strings, and the bootlegged version with no strings. 

In addition to the 1973 recording of "Save the Last Dance for Me" released as a Pussy Cats CD bonus track, there is another similar sounding alternate version featuring many vocal overdubs, though the recording date is unknown. 

The "June 1973-ish" recording date for "Down By the Sea" comes from the 2011 bootleg Son of Harryties 04: A Little Son of Schessions In The Night. 

In the 2005 RareSeventies bootleg, an otherwise undated alternate version of “What’s Your Sign?” (later denoted as “rehearsal 2”) is placed in the 1973 section following “Black Sails,” “Don’t Forget Me,” and “I Want You to Sit on My Face.”

In the 2011 Son of Harryties 04: A Little Son of Schessions In The Night bootleg, “I Want You to Sit on My Face” and “Happy Birthday Richard Perry” are both undated and grouped with the Son of Schmilsson sessions, effectively placing them in 1972. However, “I Want You to Sit on My Face” was later revealed officially to be from 1973, so it is possible that the same applies to this recording of “Happy Birthday Richard Perry.”

 

Songs Released During Nilsson's Lifetime

1. "All My Life" (1974, Pussy Cats)
2. "Black Sails" (1974, Pussy Cats)
3. "Don't Forget Me" (1974, Pussy Cats)
4. "Save the Last Dance for Me" (1974, Pussy Cats)
5. "Turn Out the Light" (1975, Duit On Mon Dei)
6. "I Never Thought I'd Get This Lonely" (1977, Knnillssonn)
7. "Lean On Me" (1977, Knnillssonn)
8. "Flying Saucer Song" (1976, Sandman)
9. "Down By the Sea" (1975, Duit On Mon Dei)
10. "Daybreak" (1974, Son of Dracula)
11. "What's Your Sign" (1975, Duit On Mon Dei)

Of these releases, all but "Daybreak" were re-recorded. 

Notably, "Daybreak" is the only recording from these 1973 sessions that Nilsson released at the time.

 

Songs With Officially Released Versions, Including Posthumous Releases

1. "All My Life" (1974, Pussy Cats)
2. "Black Sails" (1974, Pussy Cats)
3. "Don't Forget Me" (1974, Pussy Cats)
4. "Save the Last Dance for Me" (1974, Pussy Cats)
5. "Turn Out the Light" (1975, Duit On Mon Dei)
6. "I Never Thought I'd Get This Lonely" (1977, Knnillssonn)
7. "Lean On Me" (1977, Knnillssonn)
8. "Flying Saucer Song" (1976, Sandman)
9. "Down By the Sea" (1975, Duit On Mon Dei)
10. "Daybreak" (1974, Son of Dracula)
11. "What's Your Sign" (1975, Duit On Mon Dei)
12. "Sit On My Face" (2013, The RCA Albums Collection)
13. "Animal Farm" (2006, Perfect Day / 2019, Losst and Founnd)

Listen to "Animal Farm," a song from these 1973 sessions that was later recorded during Nilsson's final sessions: 

Songs With Versions That Are Officially Released and/or Bootlegged

1. "All My Life"
2. "Black Sails"
3. "Don't Forget Me"
4. "Save the Last Dance for Me"
5. "Turn Out the Light"
6. "I Never Thought I'd Get This Lonely"
7. "Lean On Me"
8. "Flying Saucer Song"
9. "Down By the Sea"
10. "Daybreak"
11. "What's Your Sign"
12. "Sit On My Face"
13. "Happy Birthday Richard Perry"
14. "Animal Farm"

"Happy Birthday Richard Perry" has never been officially released and currently circulates only through bootlegs.  

Songs With No Known Information Available

1. "Had To Say No"
2. "Keep On Rowing"
3. "A Ring A Ring"
4. "Victoria"
5. "(Illegible)"
6. "Bad Times"

It is currently unknown if any of these unknown songs were later reworked or simply retitled to any songs that are released.

I hope these 6 songs are released in some form someday. I can only dream that “Bad Times” is a sequel of sorts to the perennial Nilsson (and now Monkees) classic “Good Times.” It could also be related to "All My Life" in some way, considering that song's regular utterance of the phrase "bad times." 

 

Further Notes

Notably absent from this list is the song “Campo de Encino,” a Jimmy Webb cover recorded on 5 July 1973. This is the only known song from this period that is unaccounted for on the list. While I don’t want to make unfounded claims, I speculate that the illegible title on the list may refer to this recording. This is, of course, purely speculative.

Listen to “Campo de Encino”:

Many of the 1973 recordings of the tracks on the list do not circulate beyond what are presumably demos and/or rough studio takes. A write up on “Campo de Encino” by Marc Harry, a known figure in the Nilsson fandom, sheds some light on this. He states that the original mix of the song had other instruments, including Nilsson’s own drumming, that did not sound very good. This is no surprise due to Nilsson’s famously poor drumming (the evidence lies in the other bootlegged tracks from around the same time as well as the John Lennon bootleg 1974 L.A. Jam Sessions, where Lennon is oft heard berating Nilsson for his drums). Read Marc Harry’s page, archived through the Wayback Machine.

Based on this list and its various reductions, we can speculate on what a post-A Little Touch 1973 album might have been like, what one more record before the damage done to Nilsson’s voice during the sessions for Pussy Cats might have been. The fact that “Animal Farm,” a song from Nilsson’s final sessions, can be discussed as a part of his 70s work is something that I find very fascinating.

 

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