Story of the Song: Without Her by Harry Nilsson

From The Independent archive: Robert Webb on a love song sold for $10,000

(Billboard)

Few singer-songwriters have tackled loneliness and loss like Harry Nilsson. His best-known four minutes is a lofty cover of the morbid “Without You”, one of the biggest hits of the Seventies. But the earlier, similarly titled but self-penned “Without Her” is the real pearl.

Back in 1967, Nilsson was working nights in a Los Angeles bank and jobbing as a songwriter during the day. He'd had a couple of moderate successes, but nothing to write home about. One night he worked the black notes on his piano and out came three extraordinary songs. One was the autobiographical “1941”. Another was a love song, “Without Her”.

“The next day, they came into the office [where I wrote] and I said, 'Listen to what I did last night',” Nilsson told Goldmine magazine a week before his death in 1993. Nilsson played a tape of all three: “They said, 'You wrote those last night?'” Across the hall, a music publisher heard the tape. “He said, ‘I’d like to buy that one, “Without Her”, for $10,000'’.”

It was a simple story of absent love, but one that fluttered quietly in its muted charm. Glen Campbell cut the first version, which was perfect for his subterranean voice.

“Without Her” featured on Nilsson's first album, Pandemonium Shadow Show, issued in October 1967, a year before The Beatles cited him as their favourite American artist. The bashful performer was suddenly a name, although he always refused to play live.