the harrowing super-schmaltz of “Without You”—I can’t liiiiiiiiiiive ... etc.—which he borrowed from Badfinger in 1971 and which went on to become (characteristically, topsy-turvily for this most prolific composer) his biggest hit. “Without You” is sort of a nightmare, the ’70s at their maudlin and woolly-faced worst, but there’s no question that Nilsson’s vocal performance transports the song to a garish emotional summit. Can’t LIIIIIVE! “Harry burst into terrifically unpleasant hemorrhoids on that top note,” Derek Taylor, one-time Beatles press officer, reports in Alyn Shipton’s new Nilsson: The Life of a Singer-Songwriter. “Whenever I hear it I always think of the hemorrhoids.”
-- James Parker, Lennon + McCartney = Nilsson, Slate Magazine, July 2013