50 Years Ago: John Lennon Joins Harry Nilsson on 'Pussy Cats'

The mid-'70s should have been an easy time for Harry Nilsson. After producing a string of critically acclaimed but commercially middling albums, his star rose in 1971 thanks to a pair of divergent releases: The Point!, an animated children's special and soundtrack, and Nilsson Schmilsson, which found producer Richard Perry reining in some of Nilsson's more esoteric impulses and helping him score the biggest hit of his career.

His three-and-a-half-octave vocal range was capable of scaling angelic heights, but Nilsson was never all that interested in adhering to pop formula: With Nilsson Schmilsson, he toyed with the mainstream the way a bored kitten bats around a ball of yarn, and by the time he and Perry reconvened the following year, he was already chafing under its restrictions.

Son of Schmilsson has its share of commercial moments, but as often as not, Nilsson couldn't resist the urge to tweak them – usually with off-color humor, as he did by belching in the first few moments of the otherwise lovely "Remember (Christmas)" or by taking a chugging, radio-ready rocker like "You're Breaking My Heart" and giving its chorus the wholly satisfying (but single-killing) tagline "So fuck you."

READ MORE: Top 10 Harry Nilsson Songs

If Nilsson's bosses at RCA were irritated by the relative lack of chart fuel contained in Son of Schmilsson, they were downright apoplectic when he decided to follow it up with A Little Touch of Schmilsson in the Night, a collection of pop standards recorded live in the studio with an orchestra. While certainly lovely (and a fine overall example of just what a glorious instrument his voice was in its prime), A Little Touch of Schmilsson wasn't at all commercial, and a bewildering departure for fans who'd climbed on board while he was scoring hit singles like "Jump Into the Fire" or "Coconut."

By early 1974, Nilsson's once-promising career seemed in danger of dawdling into the margins. On top of stalling sales, he had personal problems: His second marriage was falling apart, his new girlfriend was finishing college half a world away in Ireland, and his self-destructive nature – as well as his vast appetite for assorted substances and various means of carousing – had started to affect his creative output. On the promotional trail for A Little Touch of Schmilsson in the Night, he joked that his cupboard of material was looking rather bare.

"Most of those songs will be originals, even though I don't like my songs very much right now," he said in a 1973 1973 interview. "I like the songs on the last album, Son of Schmilsson. In fact, I love them – but I'm not that happy with the ones for the next album. Still, we'll do them anyway because I haven't got anything else to record. They're just not as good as things I've recorded in the past."

Listen to Harry Nilsson's 'Subterranean Homesick Blues'

Signs of Trouble Ahead

On top of all that, Nilsson needed a producer. After fighting over whether the A Little Touch of Schmilsson project was a good idea, he and Perry parted ways. Not that he'd necessarily admit it, but that left Nilsson in need of someone who could bring out his artistic best while keeping the level of studio shenanigans to a healthy minimum.

Enter John Lennon.

"There are only four songwriters who can write a line that can really crack you up," Nilsson told the San Francisco Chronicle's Joel Selvin in 1975. "I consider myself one, along with Randy Newman, John Lennon, and Frank Zappa."

As with many things Nilsson, it's hard to know how far his tongue was lodged in his cheek when he made that statement, but there's no arguing he had good taste in songwriters. He also went back a ways with Lennon; the Beatles were among Nilsson's earliest and most ardent public supporters.

On the other hand, Lennon was by his own admission fairly restless in the studio. Even under the best of circumstances, he probably wouldn't have been the taskmaster Nilsson needed. Given that Lennon was then in the midst of his "Lost Weekend," the ultimate effect was a little like putting two bulls in a china shop. With drugs.

Their collaboration saw its first glimmers in late 1973, when Nilsson paid a visit to the notoriously ill-tempered sessions for Lennon's Phil Spector-produced Rock and Roll sessions. He later recalled that he found "every friend I ever had in my life all in that same room," as well as Lennon and Spector "in a war." Rather than being drawn in, Nilsson said "they were at odds and I think I was a nice little centerpiece they could dance around for a moment. Suddenly, I was the maypole of stability, if you can believe that."

It was at this point that Lennon announced to everyone in attendance that he wanted to produce Nilsson's next album. Nilsson didn't believe him at first. "When John said, 'I want to produce you, Harry,' he didn't think in a million years that John was going to do it," suggested May Pang, Lennon's assistant and Lost Weekend companion. "Then he got really nervous."

Before anyone could get too worried about making music, there was partying to do. In mid-March, Lennon and Nilsson made headlines when one particularly soused evening ended with the duo being ejected from L.A.'s Troubadour nightclub for heckling the Smothers Brothers. Lennon was loudest, but Nilsson eagerly encouraged him – and wasn't really any help when security confronted Lennon at their table.

"All of a sudden his boyhood I'm-being-attacked routine came out. Of course, Harry's in there, mixing it up as usual, and then they got the bouncers to come and escort the two of them out the door. I'm behind them. There's like 10 bouncers," Pang later recalled. "John stumbled and he fell on the ground. He was drunk out of his mind by that point – and Harry too, just wasted. It was just a complete fiasco and I was just so pissed off at Harry for that."

Listen to Harry Nilsson's 'Don't Forget Me'

A Boozy, Unfocused Beginning

According to reports published around the time of the incident, onlookers blamed the escalating violence on Lennon but Nilsson was also singled out for his part in the fracas. "Although Harry Nilsson was not directly involved in the incident, those sitting closest to the Beatle's table state that it was Nilsson who egged Lennon on, demanding that he get ever more outrageous," according to a June 1974 report from Circus. "Apparently both men had been drinking quite a bit."

Nilsson admitted that the incident "still haunts me" in the last interview before his death. "People think I'm an asshole and a mean guy. They still think I'm a rowdy bum from the '70s who happened to get drunk with John Lennon, that's all. I drank because they did. I just introduced John and Ringo [Starr] to Brandy Alexanders, that was my problem."

In public, Nilsson may have played the innocent social drinker, but in private, he was already a charter member of L.A.'s hard-living rock crowd. When he decided to prep for the new album by renting a beach house for himself and the many musicians he'd lined up for the project, wild times were sure to follow. The crowd of players included such notable nightlife enthusiasts as Ringo Starr and Keith Moon, so the mood surrounding the sessions devolved from celebratory to senseless abandon.

"We had the wildest assemblage of that part of history in that house," Nilsson boasted in a 1980 interview with Mix. "It makes the Round Table look like a toadstool."

Long-time Nilsson arranger Perry Botkin said the air of barely controlled (or, just as often, uncontrolled) chaos was no accident. "Pretty soon the whole band was bombed and they would get very little work done," he told Erik Himmelsbach in 2007. That's the way he wanted it, and that was just sort of one big party. It cost an awful lot of money to make his albums because of that, because of this party going on in the studio."

On March 28, six days after moving into the beach house, Nilsson and crew descended upon the Record Plant and they quickly attracted an assortment of famous friends, including Paul McCartney and Stevie Wonder. But A Toot and a Snore in '74, the infamous bootleg from those early sessions, showed that all that star power failed to amount to much in the way of compelling music. To say they were unfocused is putting it mildly.

"It's murder to listen to," lamented Nilsson historian Curtis Armstrong. "This was a lot of very talented people wasting their time, blowing off steam. All those great people, what an awful situation."

Listen to Harry Nilsson's 'Many Rivers to Cross'

Harry Nilsson Suffers a Lasting Injury

These sessions may also mark the spot where Nilsson started suffering throat problems that would continue to dog him throughout recording, eventually forcing Lennon to call the proceedings to a temporary halt. The exact hows and whys have always been somewhat hazy, as Nilsson blamed it on an infection he picked up after spending the night on the beach. But the damage to his vocal cords, and subsequent rapid degradation of his singing ability, is impossible to miss.

"There were lots of recordings from '73 and early '74 where his voice was fine," Armstrong argued. "Toot and Snore, it sounds like it happened there. It may have been the next day, because he sounded worse there than anything."

Unfortunately for his long-term vocal health, Nilsson insisted on gutting it out, at least partly because he was afraid that if he backed out, he'd never be able to get Lennon back behind the boards. At one point, things got so bad that Nilsson actually hemorrhaged his vocal cords.

"I'm the one who drove him to the hospital and checked him in when they told him he shouldn't even talk for six months," Monkees member Micky Dolenz said. "And obviously he wouldn't hear nothing of it. Polyps, strained vocal cords. Unfortunately, he never fully recovered."

Lennon "had suggested – because he was in such bad shape – you gotta get your throat taken care of," Pang said. "At night he'd be snorting and drinking, so what good would that be? He didn't tell John he was losing his voice. He didn't tell him he was hemorrhaging in his throat, he didn't say it was bleeding. He'd say it was just sore."

Nilsson did, however, seek medical attention on more than one occasion, undergoing acupuncture and enlisting a group of cohorts that included graphic artist, musician and producer Klaus Voormann to lend moral support during a visit to the doctor. "The doctor said sternly to Nilsson, 'You are not going to talk for two weeks – and you are not going to sing. If you have anything to say, write it down,'" Voormann remembered. "Of course, Nilsson didn't keep to that, at least not for long."

Pang admitted that "he sounded so horrible. ... Harry would do one thing to make his vocals great or get his voice back, and at night he'd be out there drinking again, and it would undo everything – and this was a cycle. Finally John said, 'We can't do it here. We'll have to redo all the vocals back in New York. I can't be in L.A. any longer.'"

For Lennon, working in Los Angeles meant "you either have to be down at the beach or you become part of that never-ending show business party circuit," he explained. "That scene makes me nervous, and when I get nervous I have to have a drink and when I drink I get aggressive. So I prefer to stay in New York."

He'd later admit: "I think it was psychosomatic. I think he was nervous because I was producing him. You know he was an old Beatle fan. ... But I was committed to the thing, the band was there and the guy had no voice, so we made the best of it."

Lennon halted the sessions in L.A. on April 10, decamping to New York for another round of recordings that was far more businesslike than the first. The closer they got to finishing the new album, however, the clearer it became that Nilsson's relationship with RCA Records had badly degraded. The label's new president was dragging out the signing of Harry's new contract, a healthy $5 million deal hammered out in the wake of the Schmilsson hits. Understandably annoyed on behalf of his friend, Lennon marched down to their offices with Harry in tow, scoring Nilsson one last round of financial security along the way.

"John said, 'Look, it's about Harry. You know, you've only ever had two artists on your label: Elvis [Presley] and Harry. He told me what you're paying him. Look, for that money, I'll sign it. You've got an artist! Pay the two dollars!' 'Pay the two dollars' was like saying, 'pay the parking ticket, rather than fight City Hall.' He said, 'I'll sign with you, for that kind of money,'" Nilsson later recalled.

"When the guy heard that, his mind went 'Bing!' Dollar signs! So he said, 'Well, we'll have to get the contracts together,'" Nilsson added. "I said, 'No, no. They're on the 10th floor. They're in Legal. Ask Dick Etlinger, in Business Affairs. He's the guy.' So he calls up and says, 'Do you have the Nilsson contract? Could you bring it up here?' Because he didn't want to look like an asshole in front of John. ... John made me $5 million that minute. I looked at John for a minute and I almost cried."

Listen to Harry Nilsson's 'All My Life'

'Pussy Cats' Is Met With Bewilderment

With contract in hand, Nilsson and Lennon put the finishing touches on the album, but they still weren't finished butting heads with RCA. Their original title for the record, Strange Pussies, was sternly rejected. (Nilsson would face the same hurdle a couple of years later, when he wanted to name an album God's Greatest Hits.) Settling on the more innocent-sounding Pussy Cats, they still managed to get one last jab in on the album cover, putting a rug between a pair of alphabet blocks reading "D" and "S." It's a silly joke – but then, more than a few critics and fans thought the album was, too.

Pussy Cats was a divisive record, and it isn't hard to hear why. Not only is Nilsson's voice obviously in rough shape, but the music is loose. The whole record sounds a little unsteady, like the songs are barely being held together and the entire thing could collapse at any moment. In fact, at a few points, it actually sounds like the wreckage after a collapse: In "Old Forgotten Soldier," for instance, Nilsson's vocals are little more than a husky haze wafting through haunted wreckage. To listeners still holding out hope for another "Without You," it had to be disconcerting.

When approached without the baggage of Nilsson's earlier work, however, Pussy Cats is an album rich with its own rewards. He'd been forced to work without the amazingly elastic voice that was his calling card – Nilsson later jokingly described his upper range as having been "donated to whiskey" – and responded with some of his most heartfelt vocal performances, including his spine-tingling wail on "Many Rivers to Cross" and the raspy melancholy of "Don't Forget Me."

A few songs wobble into inessential territory – covers of "Loop de Loop" and "Save the Last Dance for Me," for example, were hardly necessary – but others pack enough of a buzz to give a contact high decades after the fact. Nilsson and Lennon's take on Bob Dylan's "Subterranean Homesick Blues" stands as a sort of wild-eyed companion piece to "Jump Into the Fire," while "All My Life," with its seasick strings and lyrics lamenting the "bad times" spent "Shooting 'em up / drinking 'em up, taking them pills / fooling around," lays bare the weary self-awareness that ballasted Nilsson's hedonistic flights.

Still, it's easy to understand why Pussy Cats was greeted with bewilderment, indifference and derision after it arrived in stores on Aug. 19, 1974. Mustering a chart peak of No. 60 (a steep comedown from the No. 3 showing enjoyed by Nilsson Schmilsson), it effectively ended Nilsson's run as a commercial force. He'd release four more albums for RCA, and the last one (1977's Knnillssonn) was the biggest seller of the bunch, peaking at No. 108.

The label didn't do a lot to promote those later efforts, but Nilsson had a knack for putting a fly in the ointment. Son of Schmilsson and Pussy Cats found him indulging in bursts of off-color humor, but it became a hallmark of his subsequent efforts with songs like "Jesus Christ You're Tall," "How to Write a Song" and "She Sits Down on Me." None of it was exactly surprising coming from the guy who used a group of nursing home residents as backing vocalists for the Son of Schmilsson track "I'd Rather Be Dead." Still, when it seemed like he ought to be straightening out and doubling down, Nilsson often appeared to be shrugging.

All of which is not to say that those albums are without their charms, or that Nilsson wasn't capable of channeling heartbreaking beauty in his later years. (On the contrary: Knnillssonn is arguably his most consistent and loveliest work.) "He could go into the studio with a matchbook with a few words on and he could come out with an amazing contrement of music and lyrics," his friend and collaborator Van Dyke Parks said. "There was a pragmatic nature to his intoxication. He wasn't just a sybarite. He was a driven man. There was, at all times, a sense of urgency and purpose."

Publicist Derek Taylor, a longtime Beatles associate and the producer of A Little Touch of Schmilsson in the Night, made a similar case in his liner notes for the original Pussy Cats pressing. "Harry and John [...] have been living a vampire turntable recently but have sucked no blood except each other's and not so much of that," he quipped. "Anyway, the cross-transfusion works, so what the hell."