The BEATLES Illustrated: Pussy Cats

Pussy Cats - Harry Nilsson

Vinyl L.P • RCA Records • CPL1-0570-A.

1974 • U.S.A.

Produced by John Lennon

Back cover.

Inner gatefold.

Disc side 1.

Labels.

Harry Nilsson:

Liner notes:

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 | 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, | was glad to leave and wait for the real thing which you now have in your hands.

When | first heard Harry in 1968 (see liner notes for his ‘‘Aerial Ballet” album) and then later met him it was strong (heterosexual, if you don’t mind) love at first sight and | 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 | will eat my (right) elbow. As | say, how can | say about the music when I haven't heard it and yet there are a couple of things | 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 very 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 this 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

Derek Taylor appears by kind permission of the lovable brothers Warner and their jolly nephew Chairman Mo.

End of liner notes.

*Peter Skellern provided the word ‘snapping’ as an alternative

to ‘breaking’ and |am avery pragmatic man (sometimes).

Sensitive Assistant Producer and Incredible Chief Engineer: Roy Cicala

Assistant Engineer: Jimmy lovine

Thanks to Dennis Ferrante

Thanks to THE BURBANK STUDIOS People: Andy MeDonald,

Frank Jones, Dianne Hollen and Jim Winfres

Thanks to Record Plant West People