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Pussy Cats
Original 1974 album liner notes.
PUSSYCATS
Starring
HARRY NILSSON
Produced By
JOHN LENNON
________________________________________________________
These are written at 78 and should be read at 33. I have one hour to catch the plane. You have all your lives. Lucky bastards.
Funny thing is, that when I was in New York last week with George Melly I remembered everything Harry and John said and did except that I had to write these notes.
Most of what Harry and John said and did was bloody funny and sometimes terrifying. They have been living a vampire timetable recently but have sucked no blood except each other’s and not so much of that. Anyway, the cross-transfusion works, so what the hell.
I am so glad they met; it is hard to convey it here. They are madmen in tandem but, as I’ve said before, very well brought-up so they’ll get by without their apple pie so run rabbits run, goddam you; the brave men are taking over.
Our heroes, Lennon and Nilsson, met in 1968, in Surrey, very strange, both quite tentative with each other, like very little children at a birthday party handing gifts to each other and blushing.
The gifts they are exchanging now are without compare (sorry if you’ve read this before – it remains true and improves daily) and to see them the other night in a studio in New York the city in which Harry was born and to which John (like all Liverpudlians) belongs, one singing, the other producing was pretty (expletive deleted) marvelous.
I was with a few other people (Lord Melly and retinue) and only heard one song (Save The Last Dance For Me) and then John said that our non-stop chattering would put Harry off his stroke, so maybe we should go into another room and have a drink or something.
Actually, we hadn’t said a bloody word (hardly dared to breathe or strike a match) any of us, and well John knew it but he is nothing if not tactful and both he and Harry told me later that it was paranoia-avoidance and well I knew that and as recording studios are no places for people without real tasks to perform, I was glad to leave and wait for the real thing which you now have in your hands.
When I first heard Harry in 1968 (see liner notes for his “Ariel Ballet” album) and then later met him it was strong (heterosexual, if you don’t mind) love at first sight and I knew he should meet John.
(Later of course he met the fab other three; with Ringo too he has formed a magical team.) They are both tuffians (neither ruffians, nor very tough, but a bit of both) and able to exert terrific pressures on each other without either snapping.*
The consequent tension is one of the great wonders of the music business and if this album isn’t great and famous I will eat my (right) elbow. As I say, how can I say about the music when I haven’t heard it and yet there are a couple of things I know about them you should know: For instance, their arrogance is a mask for unending warmth and enthusiasm, not only for the people they know and the things they need for their life-support systems (music, praise, a few dollars in their back pockets and pieces of paper down their socks) but also for people they don’t know and will never meet again.
They are givers, not takers. Maybe they’re right, maybe they’re wrong, maybe they’re weak, maybe they’re strong, maybe they’ll live lives of regret, maybe they’ll give much more than they get, but nevertheless they’re in love with you, and certainly I am with them.
In the early days of their friendship John was “Famous” and Harry was “Not Famous,” but it was with the greatest pleasure that John went public with the statement that Harry was his favorite American group (just as many years earlier he and his musketeers had done the same for the beautiful Byrds) and it was with great diffidence that Harry allowed RCA to exploit his endorsement.
Both responses emerged as the right ones and now, and now, and now…look what has happened…hand in hand, by the edge of the sand they dance by the light of the moon and bring joy to the world.
Something like that.
Derek Taylor
* Peter Skellern provided the word ‘snapping’ as an alternative to ‘breaking’ and I am a very pragmatic man (sometimes).
End of liner notes
__________________________________________________
(From the back cover)
"Everything is the opposite of what it is."
Dr. Winston O'Boogie M.D. (Manic Depressive)
"But somehow it isn't only not just the words isn't it?
Prof. Schmilsson M.E. (Me)
__________________________________________________
SIDE A
Many Rivers To Cross* (BMI)
(Jim Cliff)
© copyright 1969 Island Music Ltd., England. Controlled in Western Hemisphere by Irving Music, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved
Drums: Jim Keltner, Ringo Starr
Sax: Bobby Keys
Piano: Ken Ascher
Organ: Willie Smith
Bass: Klaus Voormann
Guitars: Danny Kootch, Jesse Ed Davis
Pedal Steel Guitar: Sneeky Pete
Arr.: John
Subterranean Homesick Blues (ASCAP)
(Bob Dylan)
© copyright 1965 M. Witmark & Sons. All rights reserved. Reprinted by permission of Warner Bros. Music.
Drums: Jim Keltner, Ringo Starr
Snare Drum: Doug Hoefer
Sax: Bobby Keys, Trevor Lawrence
Electric Piano: Ken Ascher
Guitars: Jesse Ed Davis, Danny Kootch
Pedal Steel Guitar: Sneeky Pete
Clavinet: Harry Nilsson
Arr.: John
Don’t Forget Me* (BMI)
(H. Nilsson)
© copyright 1974 Blackwood Music, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Piano: Harry Nilsson
Arr.: Harry
All My Life* (BMI)
(H. Nilsson)
© copyright 1974 Blackwood Music, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Drums: Ringo Starr, Jim Keltner
Sax: Bobby Keys
Piano: Ken Ascher
Bass: Klaus Voormann
Guitars: Jesse Ed Davis, Danny Kootch
Pedal Steel Guitar: Sneeky Pete
Chinese Wood Blocks: Keith Moon
Arr.: Harry & John
Old Forgotten Soldier (BMI)
(H. Nilsson)
© copyright 1974 Blackwood Music, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Piano: Harry Nilsson
Bass: Klaus Voormann
Guitar: Jesse Ed Davis
Arr.: Harry
SIDE B
Save The Last Dance For Me* (BMI)
(D. Pomus-M. Shuman)
© copyright 1960 Hill & Range Songs, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Drums: Ringo Starr, Jim Keltner
Sax: Bobby Keys, Trevor Lawrence, Gene Cipriano
Piano: Jane Getz
Bass: Klaus Voormann
Pedal Steel: Sneeky Pete
Guitars: Jesse Ed Davis, Danny Kootch
Arr.: Harry & John
Mucho Mungo / Mt. Elga* (BMI)
(J. Lennon) / (H. Nilsson – adaptation)
Mucho Mungo: © copyright John Lennon 1974. All rights reserved. Reprinted by permission.
Mt. Elga: © copyright 1974 Blackwood Music, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Drums: Jim Keltner
Sax: Bobby Keys, Trevor Lawrence
Piano: Ken Ascher
Bass: Klaus Voormann
Guitars: Jesse Ed Davis, Danny Kootch
Congas: Keith Moon
Maraca: Cynthia Webb, Ringo Starr
Arr.: Harry & John
Loop de Loop (BMI)
(Ted Vann)
© copyright 1962 Wren Music Co., Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Drums: Keith Moon, Jim Keltner, Ringo Starr
Sax: Jim Horn, Bobby Keys, Trevor Lawrence
Piano: Jane Getz
Electric Piano: Harry Nilsson
Bass: Klaus Voormann
Guitars: Danny Kootch, Jesse Ed Davis
Trombone: Chuck Findley
Featuring The Masked Alberts Kids Chorale: Troy Germano, Kristin Turner, Erik Mueller, Nathalie Altman, Peri Prestopino, Cantey Turner, Phyllida Paterson, Rachel Mueller, Damon Vigiano, Susie Bell, David Steinberg
Arr.: Harry & John
Black Sails* (BMI)
(H. Nilsson)
© copyright 1974 Blackwood Music, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Arr.: Harry
Rock Around the Clock (ASCAP)
(J. DeKnight-M. Freedman)
© copyright 1953 Myers Music. Used by permission. All rights reserved
Drums: Keith Moon, Jim Keltner, Ringo Starr
Sax: Jim Horn, Bobby Keys, Trevor Lawrence
Piano: Jane Getz
Electric Piano: Harry Nilsson
Bass: Klaus Voormann
Guitars: Danny Kootch, Jesse Ed Davis
Trombone: Chuck Findley
Arr.: Harry & John
____________________________________________________
Sensitive Assistant Producer and Incredible Chief Engineer: Roy Cicala
Assistant Engineer: Jimmy Iovine
Thanks to Dennis Ferrante
Thanks to THE BURBANK STUDIOS people: Andy McDonald,
Frank Jones, Dianne Hollen and Jim Winfree
Thanks to Record Plant West People
Mastering: Record Plant Cutting Room: Tom Rabstenak and Greg Calbi
Production Assistant: May Pang
And OUR PAL Mal Evans
All Orchestration & Conducting: Ken Ascher
* Featuring The Masked Alberts Orchestra
Ringo Starr appears through the courtesy of EMI Records Ltd.
Keith Moon appears through the courtesy of MCA records, Inc.
Willie Smith appears through the courtesy of Epic Records
Derek Taylor appears by kind permission of the lovable brothers Warner and their jolly nephew Chairman Mo.
Art Direction by Acy R. Lehman
TMK(S) ® Registered Marca(s) Registrada(s) RCA Corporation
© 1974 RCA Records, New York, NY Printed in U.S.A.
RCA CPL1-0570 Stereo
