I remember buying this single (which I still have), probably because it was number one for what seemed like months in 1972, and because everyone else bought it.
I can’t say I’ve had the urge to play it since then but I could probably get up and sing it without a look at the lyrics if the occasion ever demanded it. Don’t worry… that won’t happen.
The song is written by Peter Ham and Tom Evans of Badfinger, who would both go on to commit suicide, adding further poignancy to this gut-wrenching slow-burning ballad with its plaintive piano intro, lavish orchestration and tearful chorus: “I can’t live, if living is without you.” Nilsson’s soaring vocal on that chorus line was added at the last minute and Derek Taylor, the former Beatles press officer turned A&R man at Warner Bros, remembered his reaction upon hearing it for the first time.
“Harry bursts into terrifically unpleasant haemorrhoids on that top note,” he said. “Whenever I hear it I always think of haemorrhoids. It somehow doesn’t spoil it – though it should.”
Harry Nilsson was best known for his song writing among his fellow musicians, with a reputation as something of a “songwriter’s songwriter,” yet his two biggest hits – this one and Everybody’s Talkin’ (from the film Midnight Cowboy) – were cover versions. When he first heard Without You (by Badfinger) at a Laurel Canyon party, he initially mistook it for a Beatles song. It’s very different from his own compositions, which tended to have acerbic lyrics and avoid the topic of love.
The song’s writers died eight years apart, both at their own hands. After their label, Apple, collapsed Badfinger became embroiled in legal disputes regarding royalties and Ham hung himself in 1975 after drinking ten whiskies in the pub with Evans, who drove him home to his pregnant girlfriend at the end of the evening; in 1983 Evans hung himself from a willow tree after an argument with another band member over royalties from this song.
Nilsson didn’t handle success too well either. Already averse to touring, at the expense of his career, alcoholism ran in his family and the fame and fortune from this hit drove him to drink, which contributed eventually to his death in 1994 at the age of only 52.