{"id":5147,"date":"2025-09-12T13:30:00","date_gmt":"2025-09-12T13:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/deep-cut-friday-its-a-jungle-out-there-by-harry-nilsson\/"},"modified":"2025-09-12T13:30:00","modified_gmt":"2025-09-12T13:30:00","slug":"deep-cut-friday-its-a-jungle-out-there-by-harry-nilsson","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/deep-cut-friday-its-a-jungle-out-there-by-harry-nilsson\/","title":{"rendered":"Deep Cut Friday: \u2018It\u2019s a Jungle Out There\u2019 by Harry Nilsson"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<figure><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/static.spin.com\/files\/2025\/08\/GettyImages-706853485.jpg\" width=\"\" height=\"\" alt=\"\"><\/figure>\n<p><em>Each week, SPIN digs into the catalogs of great artists and highlights songs you might not know for our Deep Cut Friday series.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>The members of the Beatles were early champions of Harry Nilsson\u2019s music, and the Brooklyn-born singer-songwriter\u2019s early albums spun off massive chart hits like 1969\u2019s \u201cEverybody\u2019s Talkin\u2019\u201d and 1971\u2019s \u201cWithout You.\u201d Over the next few years, however, Nilsson\u2019s star faded, and 1975\u2019s <em>Duit on Mon Dei <\/em>and 1976\u2019s<em> Sandman<\/em> both peaked in the lower half of the Billboard 200. The British label BGO Records released a double CD collection on August 29 featuring digital remasters of both albums with extensive new liner notes, shedding light on an underrated period in Nilsson\u2019s career.<\/p>\n<p>More from Spin:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>\n\t\t\t<a href=\"https:\/\/www.spin.com\/2025\/09\/5-albums-i-cant-live-without-sean-griffin-of-the-ruffians\/\">5 Albums I Can\u2019t Live Without: Se\u00e1n Griffin of the Ruffians<\/a>\n\t\t<\/li>\n<li>\n\t\t\t<a href=\"https:\/\/www.spin.com\/2025\/09\/pink-floyd-wish-you-were-here-reissue\/\">Pink Floyd Look Back On \u2018Wish You Were Here\u2019<\/a>\n\t\t<\/li>\n<li>\n\t\t\t<a href=\"https:\/\/www.spin.com\/2025\/09\/lcd-soundystem-new-york-residency\/\">LCD Soundystem Ready Annual NYC Residency<\/a>\n\t\t<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><em>Duit on Mon Dei <\/em>was Nilsson\u2019s first self-produced album, and features him at his most whimsical and eclectic. The album opens with a brief demo of the song \u201cJesus Christ You\u2019re Tall\u201d that would appear in a more complete form on <em>Sandman<\/em>. Nilsson had ruptured a vocal cord during the chaotic sessions for his John Lennon-produced 1974 album <em>Pussy Cats<\/em>, but his expansive vocal range is on full display on <em>Duit on Mon Dei<\/em>. The album features an all-star cast of backing musicians and vocalists including Dr. John, Ringo Starr, Gloria Jones, and Van Dyke Parks. But Trinidadian steel drum player Robert Greenidge is a particularly memorable presence, playing on eight of <em>Duit on Mon Dei<\/em>\u2019s 11 tracks.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-4-3 wp-has-aspect-ratio\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<lite-youtube videoid=\"aTwsnb-A6fE\" style=\"bottom: 0; height: 100%; left: 0; position: absolute; right: 0; top: 0; width: 100%; max-width:100%;\"><\/lite-youtube>\n<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<p>Greenidge frequently guested on calypso and reggae-influenced tracks by American stars such as Carly Simon and Robert Palmer. On <em>Duit on Mon Dei<\/em>, however, Greenidge\u2019s steelpan adds an unexpected texture to a whole range of songs, some with overt Caribbean flavors and some without. \u201cIt\u2019s a Jungle Out There\u201d is driven by a funky, unpredictable beat by legendary session drummer Jim Keltner, and its dense arrangement features saxophone, harp, flute, and marimba in addition to the steel drums. Greenidge played on Nilsson\u2019s next two albums and later joined Jimmy Buffett\u2019s Coral Reefer Band, which he continues to tour with today. Nilsson\u2019s career never recovered from his mid-\u201970s commercial slump, and he stopped releasing music in the \u201980s. The album he was working on when he died of heart failure in 1994 was eventually released under the title <em>Losst and Founnd<\/em> in 2019.<\/p>\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"h-three-more-essential-harry-nilsson-deep-album-cuts-1941\"><strong>Three more essential Harry Nilsson deep album cuts:<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>\u201c1941\u201d<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>\u201c1941\u201d was the song that Beatles publicist Derek Taylor heard that inspired him to buy many copies of Nilsson\u2019s second album, 1967\u2019s <em>Pandemonium Shadow Show<\/em>, and give them to everyone he knew, including the Fab Four. Taylor later produced Nillson\u2019s 1973 album <em>A Little Touch of Schmilsson in the Night<\/em>.<\/p>\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"h-gotta-get-up\"><strong>\u201cGotta Get Up\u201d<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>The opening track from the 1971 classic <em>Nilsson Schmilsson<\/em> experienced a resurgence in 2019 when it became a recurring musical theme in the first season of Netflix\u2019s hit time loop comedy series <em>Russian Doll<\/em>.<\/p>\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"h-you-re-breakin-my-heart\"><strong>\u201cYou\u2019re Breakin\u2019 My Heart\u201d<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>One of the most popular songs from 1972\u2019s <em>Son of Schmilsson<\/em> didn\u2019t get much radio play because its opening lines get right to the point pretty bluntly: \u201cYou\u2019re breakin\u2019 my heart, you\u2019re tearin\u2019 it apart, so fuck you.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>To see our running list of the top 100 greatest rock stars of all time, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.spin.com\/2021\/07\/the-greatest-rock-stars-of-all-time\/?utm_source=yahoo&amp;utm_medium=bottomlink&amp;utm_campaign=yahoolink\">click here<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div style=\"margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px;\" class=\"sharethis-inline-share-buttons\" ><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Each week, SPIN digs into the catalogs of great artists and highlights songs you might not know for our Deep Cut Friday series. The members of the Beatles were early&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2152,31,3737,24],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5147","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-deep-cut-friday","category-features","category-harry-nilsson","category-pushly"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5147","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5147"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5147\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5147"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5147"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5147"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}