Harry Nilsson, at the time best known for his hit "Everybody's Talkin'" and for composing such hits as Three Dog Night's "One", heard Badfinger's recording of "Without You" at a party, and mistook it for a Beatles song.
After realizing it was not, he decided to cover the song for his album Nilsson Schmilsson in 1971.
The song was released as a single in October 1971, and it stayed at number one on the U.S. pop chart for four weeks, from 13 February to 11 March 1972. The song also spent five weeks atop the U.S. adult contemporary chart. Billboard ranked it as the number four song for 1972.
In the UK, the song spent five weeks at number one on the British pop chart, beginning on 11 March, and sold almost 800,000 copies. It went to number one in several other countries, including Australia (for five weeks), Ireland (two weeks) and New Zealand (two weeks).
The single was produced by Richard Perry, who later explained, "It was a different record for its time. It was a big ballad with a heavy backbeat, and although many artists have cut songs like it since, no one was doing it then."
Gary Wright who worked with Badfinger on George Harrison's projects, played the piano. Also featured are Klaus Voormann (bass), Jim Keltner (drums) and Tom Plovanic (acoustic guitar). The string and horn arrangements are by Paul Buckmaster.
In 1973, Nilsson won the "Best Male Pop Vocal" Grammy award for the song.
While Nilsson rarely gave live concerts, he did perform the song with Ringo Starr and his All-Starr Band at Caesar's Palace in Las Vegas in September 1992.
Ironically, Paul McCartney once described the ballad as "the killer song of all time"
