written by Harry Nilsson

produced by Harry Nilsson and Rick Jarrard

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June 15th, 2021: would-be 80th birthday of Harry Edward Nilsson

III. Happy Birthday, HN!!

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In non-sequence according to my List, most of these are being done

as birthday tributes, going by the chronological days I’m building these pages. This one is for the late (Harry) Nilsson, who sometimes went professionally by only his surname. He was an American fellow of Swedish descent, who began a recording career in his mid-20s, with one album on Tower Records before signing up for greater success with RCA. 1969 witnessed the release of the record Harry, containing the song on this page.

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Paul McCartney asked Nilsson for a song to give a young singer he’d just signed to The Beatles’ label Apple Records. The result was “The Puppy Song.” The Welsh teen girl singer, Mary Hopkin, recorded and released it on her debut album. A bit later, out came Harry—Nilsson’s ’69 record—with his own version. Like I’m willing to bet most my age would’ve been, I was introduced to this song via the same source that gave us Carole King’s “Anyone At All”: Nora Ephron’s film You’ve Got Mail, starring Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan. “The Puppy Song” welcomes us into the film with the opening credits, and “Anyone At All” finishes it off with the closing credits. The difference was that “Anyone” was brand-new, made for the movie, and “Puppy” was of course an oldie. Both songs are on the soundtrack, giving me the quality audio editions of them. It was also one of four classic Nilsson songs used in the film—the others being “Remember (Christmas),” “I Guess The Lord Must Be In New York City,” and the tear-jerkingly memorable “Over The Rainbow.” All show delightfully different sides of Harry’s repertoire, as well as different shades of the movie. It also sets a nice tone to show us what we’re in for. It may be over half a century old, from a much simpler time, but even for its original surroundings... they just get much more innocent and whimsical than this.

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When I checked out the Harry record, the sources I consulted actually gave a few different release dates. As I do not possess such precise or official information—and as Harry’s official website doesn’t disclose the dates—I’ll be listing the album release date below as only 1969.

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Have notes to add? Let me know!

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YT:

full version

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Harry’s official website