1972 Nilsson: Without You

Everybody knows that 'Without You' is a cover of a Badfinger track written by two of its members who both wound up committing suicide, that's just pub quiz fodder, but how many have actually heard the song as performed by them? Nilsson's version has passed into the canon as the definitive uberballad par excellence, a performance that builds like ripples from a light piano pebble that become a tidal wave of orchestration on the shore by the end. Badfinger's original is different, a far straighter rock number that goes balls out on the chorus from the off, making this more of a re-working than a straight cover.

There's no getting away from the fact that Nilsson puts the song in a more complimentary setting than the original, with a lush string arrangement that brings out the shine with a slow polish. He's a better singer than Peter Ham too (who lives up to his name on 'Without You' with some overwrought vocalising). True, the potential for vocal gymnastics has ruined many a version of this (take a bow Mariah Carey), and Nilsson's fists clenched, eyes shut wailing too walks the high wire between pantomime and heartbreak, but to credit he always manages to stay on the side of the sincere.

And he does it through restraint; rather than directing his threats to the back of his departing ex, Nilsson sounds like he's howling them to himself in an empty room. It could have made for a slightly chilly interpretation had his voice dominated at the expense of everything else, but Nilsson is too classy to milk it to the dregs and he's content to stay either beneath, alongside but never over the top of Richard Perry's arrangement and to fade the song before it starts to bore.

But no matter who's singing, I've always raised an eyebrow at the overall 'message' of 'Without You'; not so much the chorus, but the lines that precede it: "And now its only fair that I should let you know, what you should know". But why is it fair to apply an emotional blackmail that boils down to 'If you leave I'll kill myself'? It's a petulant boast that, if you pick up on it, undermines the pleading of the chorus and reduces it to self pity.

And the line between self pity and an empathetic emotion is a fine one, the mishandling of which has sunk many a modern power ballad (or a 'power ballading up' of an old song - just look at what Nazareth did to 'Love Hurts'). Sure, big chest baring statements in song are nothing new (the first ever number one 'Here In My Heart' by Al Martino is a classic example), but Nilsson's 'Without You' is far removed from the 'moon in June' heartache of tin pan alley, its rock setting elevates it above all that and in turn sows the seed that led to Diane Warren, Phil Collins and their ilk, very few of whom had Nilsson's grip of restraint. Not that I'm blaming old Harry for the likes of "Keep On Loving You", "The Power Of Love", "I Want To Know What Love Is", "Broken Wings" et al, but by god it's tempting.