167: Without You

How Good It Is

One of my favorite titles for an album comes from The Animals. They did a bunch of albums up to 1969, then for a year or two there were a couple of compilation albums after they broke up. But in 1977 the Animals reunited and released a new album, titled Before We Were So Rudely Interrupted. I don't know what made me think of that. Anyway. (heh.) This was one of those episodes where, the more I found, the more there was TO find. And so what I thought would be a relatively short episode clocks in at close to twenty minutes. What a bonus for ye! "Without You" has humble beginnings and a huge, happy ending, except for the composers, Pete Ham and Tom Evans. Although it was a huge hit for Harry Nilsson and later Mariah Carey, neither composer saw much money for it. They, themselves, didn't see much potential in the song, so they buried it in the dead center of the album, at the end of Side 1. Then in 1975, after years of mismanagement and legal squabbles, Ham committed suicide shortly after learning that all of his money had disappeared. Then, in 1983, following a dispute over royalties from the song, which had been in escrow going back to the Apple Records era, Evans also committed suicide. Click here for a transcript of this episode. Click here to become a Patron of the show. As a Patron, you get access to a weekly newsletter that publishes at least 48 times per year (stuff happens once in awhile, ya know?). You also get occasional goodies like: Giveaways Special videos Bonus Episodes A Sense of Pride for Having Helped Foster an Independent Creator