Old Enough to Forget

Like a lot of casual fans, I'd heard of Harry Nilsson much like I'd heard of Ernest Hemingway. I knew the name more than anything he's actually written. Over the years I knew of a couple of songs, particularly the beautiful "Without You" and, of course, "Everybody's Talkin'" from Midnight Cowboy . He had also covered songs by others, most notably Nilsson Sings Newman , and others would cover his songs, from the Monkees to Three Dog Night. That was it. As a result of this depth of knowledge (sarcasm alert), I had pigeon-holed him into the '70s pop singer slot where soft rock went to die. One of the albums that was on my radar was Nilsson Schmilsson from late 1971. It was the album that had "Without You" and the truly odd "Coconuts," but as fate would have it, the album I found in the dollar bin was his 1972 follow-up, released while his previous album was still on the charts. It was called Son of Schmilsson , so it was p...