[Xaqtly]

Who Is Harry Nilsson (And Why Is Everybody Talkin' About Him)? is the name of a recently released documentary about my dad, Harry Nilsson. Hopefully without being too obnoxious about it, I wanted to at least mention it here. I know there are both a lot of musicians and a lot of movie aficionados here on teh 'nova, and I think this documentary will appeal to both, and probably most everybody else, too.

Harry was a bit of an enigma in the music industry because he was extremely talented and won two Grammys, and yet was relatively unknown. I guarantee that you've heard his music but you probably have either no idea who he is, or that he wrote or sang the songs. Quick list:

- Without You (I can't live, if living is without you)
- Everybody's Talkin' (at me - from Midnight Cowboy)
- Coconut (You put the lime in the coconut...)
- One (is the loneliest number - he wrote and recorded it, Three Dog Night made it famous)
- Jump Into The Fire (famously used in "Goodfellas")
- Perfect Day (used in All That Jazz)
- You're Breaking My Heart (you might have heard this because it continues "you're tearin' it apart, so fuck you")
- Most of the soundtrack for You've Got Mail was Harry's music

So this documentary shows you who he was, why nobody knows who he was, and why you should care. It's actually a very well made documentary, it's gotten a lot of high critical acclaim from its short run in theaters, and it has a 91% rating on rottentomatoes. I'm also in it, as are a number of my brothers and sisters as well as my mom. Don't let that turn you off though - it's good despite my appearances in it.

It's out on DVD now, and it's also available on Netflix instant streaming. I highly recommend it, and not for the obvious reasons. It's seriously a very good documentary, and it's worth your time. One of the really cool things they did with this documentary is they went back to all the original masters for all of Harry's music, and built the entire score for the documentary out of his music, without the lyrics. So literally every piece of music you hear in the documentary is Harry.

Links:

The DVD
The site for the movie
Harry Nilsson dot com
Some reviews of the documentary

[chucker]

Pretty cool.

[psmith2.0]

Cool, I'll have to check that out. I've always heard of him, and been casually aware of some of his better-known output, but this sounds interesting. I like well-made documentaries.

[scratt]

You had me as "You put the lime in the coconut..."

Will certainly check if out. Your Dad's cool.

[ronmexico]

Bad ass!

[curiousuburb]

Originally Posted by scratt You had me as "You put the lime in the coconut..." Will certainly check if out. Your Dad's cool.

This.

Always been a fan.

[Xaqtly]

It occurred to me after the fact that I could link to the trailer.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SoFpvG5fb-0

[torifile]

Your dad is Harry Nilsson? Wow. My son loves "Me and My Arrow". I don't even know what it's from, we just watch the YouTube video of it. Does anyone know what that's from?

[Brave Ulysses]

Your dad is Harry Nilsson?

Very cool and very familiar with him.

The internet is such a funny place.

[Moogs]

That is tool cool. Aside from being an interesting story about a guy who really lived life / did what he loved, I am now officially two degrees of separation from the Beatles. Well, maybe 2.5 (since the internet only counts as half-way knowing someone). My life is dangerously close to having meaning. Meanwhile xactly has been one degree of separation from half of Hollywood and the entire music industry all his life.

I forget, are you actually working in music? I know a few people here are...

[Xaqtly]

Yeah the internet is wacky. Tori, Me and My Arrow comes from the soundtrack to The Point, an animated kids' movie my dad wrote (both the movie itself and the soundtrack).

Link to The Point: http://www.amazon.com/Point-Ringo-Starr/dp/B0001JXPSO

I love The Point, and its soundtrack. There are a lot of great songs in there. Harry was a huge fan of puns, and figured "The Point" was the biggest pun of all. Everything has a point, unless it doesn't. But even things without points have a point. You dig?

Again trying not to sound like I'm shilling for my dad, but The Point really is a great kids' movie.

I may be slightly biased.

[Maciej]

Yeah, I first figured out Harry Nilsson was your dad after you posted the video commemorating your mom, but I didn't want to mention it because I hadn't seen you mention it here before.

Anyway, very cool!

Thanks!

[thegelding]

Sweet...so cool...I've always had a fondness for Harry and his music...

The movie is available as an instant stream over at netflix...already posted the trailer over on my facebook and getting my mom and brothers to come over to watch it tonight.

Thanks

Gavin

[Graculus]

Again... your dad is Harry Nillsson? Nilsson Schmilsson!

Your Dad was one cool feller. It always seems a crying shame that he is best known for singing the two songs he didn't pen, but then you listen to those and they really are classics.

Me, I prefer the Dracula era, silly or not!

I don't know what else to say really, just piles of kind thoughts.

I've also been waiting for that documentary to get its much fable DVD release for what seems like a lifetime, as a gift for my brother who is a bigger fan than me! Hopefully he won't notice it until Christmas time, that would be perfect. If that fails I guess I'll just have to keep it for myself. Darn.


Ooh, just one more thing...
How involved are you in the DVD release? Do you know if it is slated for a PAL (UK) release. It's available via amazon from the US in NTSC. I'll get that if it's not due for PAL release, but would rather wait if it's likely to be.

[709]

w3rd.

In my Netflix queue.

[drewprops]

OMG
this is SO cool!!!!!!!!
...

[Xaqtly]

Yep, Nilsson Schmilsson. Yeah it took a long time to get the documentary out because of music licensing issues. But they got it sorted out finally.

I'm not really involved with the DVD release, but you could contact Lorber Films and see what their UK plans are here: http://www.lorberfilms.com/contact/

[NosferaDrew]

Very much a fan of your Dads work, Xaqtly.

Several weeks ago I was talking to a guy who works across the hall from my little mix stage (his nephew is Eric Avery from Jane's Addiction).
This guy is a music maven. He has seen thousands of shows during his life and knows everybody around town (Joe is in his late 50's).

We were talking about music and bands and somehow Harry Nilsson became the topic.

Joe had worked with your Dad during the time when Harry was collaborating with John Lennon - he had some fun anecdotes!

I love documentaries and shortly thereafter I ran across Who Is Harry Nilsson (And Why Is Everybody Talkin' About Him?

I've told so many people about this film. Very fascinating.

[Xaqtly]

Ha, that's cool. Yeah that was a common theme during most of the interviews for the documentary - everybody had anecdotes and stories, things like going missing for three days and waking up in New Mexico.

The Pussycats album and Lennon's "lost weekend" period were particularly crazy, that's when Harry blew out his vocal cords because he and John would have screaming matches - I mean just to see who could scream the loudest and hardest.

Crazy stuff.

[murbot]

Sumbitch, not available at Netflix in Canada. Poop.

Very cool though, Xactly!

[Mac+]

I remember your brother told me who his Dad was about 6 years ago. I'm really looking forward to seeing this doco - thanks Xaqtly.

[Mugge]

Well, here's a guy I've never heard of before. Beatles related, AN related and oddly specifically timed.

Interesting and definitively worthwhile promotion, Xaqtly. You can rightfully be proud of your old man.

[SKMDC]

I have two of the DVD! I did have three! It came out on my birthday and a couple of my friends bought it for me. I grew up with his music ever present.
My older brother had the Nilsson sings Newman record and the Aerial Ballet record, when Three Dog Night's "One" was a big hit, I arrogantly proclaimed to my friends that Harry Nilsson's version was infinitely superior, even at the age of ten I was an arrogant condescending prick about music!

I think my favorite thing Harry did was the music to the movie of Popeye. Harry's music and Altman were a surreal match made in heaven, the movie went on a bit too long but the songs were tremendous. Harry was and still my hero.

It's an honor, Xagtly.

[Xaqtly]

Ha! That's really cool SKMDC. Yeah most people don't even know he wrote the soundtrack to Popeye. I'm just glad his story is being told, finally. I think it's been a long time coming.

[SKMDC]

It's funny the Lennon in NYC was just on PBS, kind of a bookend to Who's Harry Nilsson.....

The movie does give a little cred to Popeye and other than mentioning Flash Harry, doesn't talk about his last couple records with RCA, Knnillssonn and That's The Way It Is, which is a shame.
I think if I could only take one Harry record with me on a desert island it might be Knnillssonn, it's quite a jem, and even though the movie seems to think that his writing lessened as he got older this album disproves that as he wrote the whole thing. In fact Blanket For A Sail I would put with anything he ever wrote, it's so simple yet profound. Whenever someone asks what their 2nd (Every decent record collection should include Nilsson Schmilsson) Nilsson purchase should be, I point them toward Knnillssonn.
'That's The Way It Is' are all covers (save one) and his voice is a little raw here but he still makes all these songs his own. Zombie Jamboree was one of my favorites to play for my kids, I wonder if they remember it?

So you're Zach, I'm not going out on to big of a limb there, yeah? Don't put yourself down about your appearance in the movie, your bits are quite good and emotionally charged.
The first one especially......

[Xaqtly]

John Scheinfeld (the director/producer) told me that they just didn't have enough time in the movie to include Knnnnilllsssoonnnnnnnnnnn and That's The Way It Is. It's 2 hours as it is, not including the 45 minutes of extra footage on the DVD, and that doesn't include all the stuff they edited out. This probably could have been a 5 or 6 hour movie, I mean there are so many more people that knew Harry in the industry that they didn't even interview.

One of my personal favorites of his is actually "Mucho Mungo" from Pussycats. Specifically in Quad. 4 of Harry's albums were released in quadrophonic, I've got DTS audio CDs of them. Not all the songs really stand out in quad, but a few of them were mixed really nicely.

And yeah, I'm Zak (spelled "Zach" on the note because he wrote that before they decided to spell my name 'Zak'). That caused a little confusion, I'm actually listed twice in IMDB, once under Zach and once under Zak.

[crazychester]

You are Harry Nilsson's son.

Oh wow.

Harry Nilsson's music has been part of my life since, I guess, I was about 7 or 8 years old. Not only did I grow up listening to him but he was one of the favorites of my much older eldest brother and I. Back in the late 60s/early 70s, he used to play his guitar and we'd sit in his bedroom together singing our hearts out. Your dad's music was right up there among our favorites. Nobody knows about that but other members of my family. But they are some of the all-time happiest memories of my life so somehow it seems only fitting you should.

Damn I wish I could have told your dad.

I wooed my ex partly by quoting the words of "Without You" at him (he used to be a fill-in drummer for various well-known Australian rock bands).

Did your dad sing you "Blanket For A Sail" as a kid?

Use your heart as a rudder
Faith as a compass
And a blanket for a sail.

I've often thought in my adult years he must have written it for his kids.

A couple of my young boy tap dancers did a dance to "The Puppy Song" which I suspect many who don't know who Harry Nilsson is would know of. Likewise "Cuddly Toy" because of The Monkees connection.

Then there was "The Point". I used to be able to sing/recite the entire album by heart. I still have it on CD plus "Nilsson Schmilsson" (of course) and "Everybody's Talkin'" which I think is a "Best Of" album IIRC. You've probably earned royalties from me!

But "The Point", what a wonderful, surprising journey he took me on as a kid, more times than I could ever count. (Ah the Evil Count!)

"You been foolin' with the bees?" LOL

There's one song I can still remember by heart (well, pretty close anyway) because I still sing it to myself when things are bad - just to try and help me keep things in perspective.

Think About Your Troubles

Sit beside the breakfast table
Think about your troubles
Pour yourself a cup of tea
Then think about the bubbles
You can take your teardrops
And drop 'em in a teacup
Take them down to the riverside
And throw them over the side
To be swept up by the current
Then taken to the ocean
To be eaten by some fishes
Who are eaten by some fishes
Who are swallowed by a whale
Who grew so old
He decomposed.
(Doo-de-doo-de-doo
Doo-de-doo-de-doo)
He died and left his body
To the bottom of the ocean
Now everybody knows
That when a body decomposes
The basic elements
Are given back to the ocean
And the sea does what it oughta
And soon there's salty water
(Which is not too good for drinking)
'Cause it tastes just like a teardrop
So they run it through a filter
And it comes out from a faucet
Where it pours into a teapot
Which is just about to bubble
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOW
THINK ABOUT YOUR TROUBLES!

"And the sea does what it oughta
And soon there's salty water."

Man they don't write 'em like that anymore.

I've often thought somebody should do/re-do a movie or stage show of "The Point". Wish they would.

It must be weird having such a legacy left to you by a parent. I imagine that in some ways it would be like he's never really gone. How wonderful.

Harry Nilsson and Randy Newman have always sat together in my mind because they both seemed capable of endlessly turning out great music. They were great songwriters in the true sense of the word. Yet neither ever seemed to achieve the recognition they really deserved.

If you tell me you got to meet Dustin Hoffman as well, I will just die.

I really just came by to see if the 'burb had anything to say about NASA's upcoming announcement re: extraterrestrial life. But hey, fuck the aliens.

Harry Nilsson's son eh? That is just incredible.

It is indeed an honor. Everybody shouldn't just talk about him. Everybody should listen to him too.

[ezkcdude]

Cool. It's streaming on Netflix so no excuse for me not to watch it. Was it actually made in 2006 and just not released until now?

[drewprops]

They've added additional footage


...

[SKMDC]

It went to film festivals in 2006, but no one ever bought it to distribute it, I was going to see it in Madison (or some college town) but it fell through. The maker got some $ to put it out on dvd in October.

Unfortunately because of the showings in previous years Xaqtly is not eligible for an Oscar or Golden Globe.