Trivia / Harry Nilsson

• Actor-Shared Background: Nilsson was born in 1941 and had a Disappeared Dad, just like the protagonist of "1941", though most of the rest of the song is fictional (Nilsson didn't get married until 1964, didn't have any children in his first marriage, and his first son was born in 1971).
• Died During Production: He worked on a comeback album with producer Mark Hudson in the months before his death, but his death apparently scuttled any release plans (though some of the songs were eventually leaked). The material (with some new overdubs overseen by his son Kiefo) eventually came out in 2019 on the Losst and Founnd album.
• Breakthrough Hit: "Everybody's Talkin'". However, it actually flopped when it first came out in 1968. It was re-released after being featured in Midnight Cowboy the next year.
• Colbert Bump: He benefited from a few of these from 1967 to 1969. The Monkees recorded "Cuddly Toy" and "Daddy's Song", Three Dog Night had their Breakthrough Hit with "One", John Lennon and Paul McCartney touted him, and "Everybody's Talkin'" was included in Midnight Cowboy.
• Follow-Up Failure: Son of Schmilsson wasn't a flop by most standards, but after the huge success of Nilsson Schmilsson and "Without You", the fact that it only could climb to #12 in Billboard, and none of its three singles even made the Top 20, was viewed as a big disappointment.
• He Also Did: Conceptualized the basic story of animated film The Point, and also contributed the songs.
• Magnum Opus Dissonance: Though the general listening audience are mostly split between Aerial Ballet, Nilsson Schmilsson, and Pandemonium Shadow Show as being Nilsson's best, the man's own opinion was that A Little Touch of Schmilsson in the Night was his best work.
  • He was also very proud of Knnillssonn; its commercial failure led to his disillusionment with the music business.
• Reclusive Artist: Downplayed: while he did have an active social life, he never toured and never played a single formal concert for a paying audience. At all. The closest he came was a BBC TV special (but even that wasn't "live", as such) and a few appearances at Beatles fan conventions where he sang a song or two.
• Referenced by...: In their intro dialogue before "Peace on Earth/Little Drummer Boy", Bing Crosby asks David Bowie if he ever listens to the "older fellows", and Bowie says he likes Harry and John Lennon.
• Screwed by the Network: Knnillssonn, his attempt to Win Back the Crowd by recreating his classic '60s style, was released in July 1977. A few weeks later, Elvis Presley died, which resulted in a complete overhaul of RCA's release schedules and promotion plans. Demand for Presley's recordings was so high, stores could not keep them in stock. A year later they released a Greatest Hits Album against his wishes, prompting Nilsson to ask to be released from his contract.
• The Shelf of Album Languishment/Short Run in Peru: Flash Harry was recorded after he left RCA Records and didn't have a recording contract. Mercury Records picked up the album in 1980, but their American division passed on it. It ended up just being released in Europe, Australia and Japan. In 2013 it finally received an official US release.
• Technology Marches On: "Kojak Columbo". 19 inches was in fact "a real good size" for a TV in 1974. Today, you can get tablets with bigger screens than that.
• What Could Have Been: Robert Altman approached Nilsson about doing the music for That Cold Day in the Park in 1969. Harry said no, but he worked with Altman 11 years later on Popeye.
• Working Title:
  • He wanted to call his first album for RCA Something Wicked This Way Comes, as a Shout-Out to the Ray Bradbury novel, but ran into legal trouble with Bradbury's publishers. He renamed it Pandemonium Shadow Show, after the traveling carnival in the novel.
  • Duit on Mon Dei was originally called God's Greatest Hits, but RCA rejected that title.

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