Not getting Nilsson

Nilsson...one of a number of people I don't "get".

Not that I rule it out at some future date.

I never thought I'd "get" Prince, or Tom Waits, or The Residents, but I do now.

Although I've never been a Nilsson fan, there's one track of his which I've loved to pieces ever since I heard it way back in 1971 - probably courtesy of John Peel.

It's this...

Taken from his best selling album "Nilsson Schmilsson", "Jump into the Fire" is a superb 7 minute wig-out comprising very loose riffing over a single chord. Its main feature is the bass line, played by ace UK session player, Herbie Flowers. Google him - he's certainly been around! During the song, he gradually detunes his bass until it's so low it's hardly audible, and then he gradually brings it back to pitch. The other musicians include Jim Gordon on drums, Chris Spedding, John Uribe and Klaus Voorman on guitars, and Jimmy Webb (yes, that Jimmy Webb!) on piano. Nilsson's voice has some heavy delay applied to it throughout, giving it an almost dub vibe, and he seems to be channeling "Abbey Road" era McCartney. Think "Oh! Darling". 

In a strange way, the track's overall groove is very like "Fur Immur" from the "NEU!2" album, with its Motorik rhythm. One of the guitars even sounds like Michael Rother. Nilsson's recording predates NEU's by a couple of years, but I doubt there's any influence at work, although there's an intriguing and striking similarity there.

Anyway, revisiting the track in an idle moment last week offered me the opportunity of seeing if I now "get" Nilsson, and what better way to start than with his best known and most successful album?

The opening track - "Gotta Get Up" - is a solid uptempo pop song that wouldn't have sounded out of place on a Monkees album a few years earlier. Nilsson wrote for the band, of course.

Next, another pop ditty called "Driving Along" which reminds me of the Beatles' "Glass Onion", particularly in its use of horns, hand claps and acoustic guitar. 

The third track is a Louis Jordan blues - "Early in the Morning". It's just a vocal and an electric piano. It's so ineffectual that I can't find anything much to say about it. Ah, I know...it's mercifully short.

Track four is "The Moonbeam Song". Again, rather Beatlish in sound, it's a gentle ballad with lots of harmonies and mellotrons towards the end. It reminds me a bit of "Across the Universe".

"Down" ends side one and again I'm forced to think "Beatles" with this slow to medium paced McCartney style rocker, with suitably crazed vocals.

Hmm...I'm not "getting" Harry at all so far.

What about side le deux?

The opening track is the song that Nilsson first thought was written by Lennon and McCartney, as well as being the song that (almost) everyone thinks was written by Nilsson. It was in fact written by Pete Ham and Tom Evans of Badfinger. "Without You" was at first envisaged as having a simple solo piano and vocal arrangement, but that idea soon went out of the window and it got the full (and very overwrought) bells and whistles treatment, and became a #1 hit practically everywhere.  

Things ended very badly indeed for Ham and Evans, who both committed suicide after royalties disputes. The full story is extremely sad and painful to hear.

 

"Coconut" follows - a novelty song consisting of one chord played over four minutes and a cod West Indian vocal. It seems longer than four minutes - a lot longer.

Track three of side two is a cover of Shirley & Lee's "Let the Good Times Roll" - for what appears to be no good reason at all. It features a rather poor harmonica solo by Nilsson. A great song, yes - but why is it here?

"Jump into the Fire" next and although it's totally at odds with the uneven, although often rather Beatlish, mood of the rest of the tracks, it's definitely the stand out song so far, and there's only one more cut to go.

The album closer is almost  Beach Boys'ish. with an orchestral arrangement not a million miles away from "Smile" era Brian Wilson, complete with a plucked banjo in there. It's OK. "I'll Never Leave You"...is that a threat or a promise?

So, have I "got" Nilsson now?

Nah - not even hardly.

The whole album sounds like something that might have been cobbled together for a posthumous release, with rejected tracks, demos and just the odd song (one in this case) worth saving. It's his best selling album which includes his best selling single, but it's a tepid affair, to say the least.

(As ever, only my opinion - feel free to differ.)

So, a one track album...but what a track!