Harry Nilsson (story)

If you think that this is gonna be a whole evening of just anecdotes about dead people [audience laughs], you're basically right. I'm gonna try to hit on some living ones here; one of my closest pals, especially before he passed away, was a fella' named Harry Nilsson who was a singer and composer. We used to drink a little bit. We'd sit at night, argue the pros and cons of music. And he loved the Beatles, I love the Rolling Stones. And so we would sit in one night, drinking and arguing a little bit, and he says "Y'know," he said, "there's just one thing wrong with your voice." And I said "What's that, Harry?" And he said "It stinks." [audience laughs] And I said "There's just one thing wrong with your songs. There's not a serious word in any one of your songs; 'It was take 54 when she came through the door with the red light on it and I knew in a minute if I wanted to get in it then I'd have to get on it. I sang my balls off for ya baby'." I said "What is that?" He said "It has humour. Your songs have no humour." Ugh, touché... Well, I thought about that. I am happy to say that I have finally made Harry happy because he eventually recorded this song - it's somewhere in the vault at RCA Victor. It'll come out one of these days. It was called Campo De Encino. It's about life in the '70s at my house in California, in the valley. Now, I don't remember the '70s [audience laughs]. It's like somebody erased a big piece of the tape, and so when I think of the '70s I just get [static noise]. But this song is kind of an artifact. It kinda gives you some clues as to what might have been going on at Jimmy's house during the '70s.