On April 8, 1997 the following people who are notable enough to have Wikipedia pages were born: Korean singer Kim Woo-jin, Australian singer Saygrace, American football player Roquan Smith, Belgian footballer Arno Verschueren and English footballer Keira Walsh. I hadn't heard of any of these people before looking up births on this date but, hey, they're all infinitely more well known than I am and probably have more money than I'll ever see. Naturally, they were far from the only babies who debuted that day. There were probably between 350,000 to 400,000 births around the world on that particular Tuesday. I hope they're all living their best lives even if, statistically speaking, a handful of them are no longer with us, not unlike Laura Nyro who passed away on that very same day.
Like John Lennon with "In My Life" and John Prine with "Hello in There", it is remarkable that Nyro wrote "And When I Die" at such a tender age. Quite a bit younger, in fact, than Lennon and Prince who were twenty-four and twenty-two respectively. Nyro was just seventeen when she wrote the song that anticipated her death by over three decades. Barring a serious health condition and/or loss of a family member or close friend, it's hard to imagine why she'd been considering the subject at all. (I had wondered if this was around the time she lost her mother to ovarian cancer — which would later fell Nyro herself; the two were both forty-nine at the time — but that didn't occur until the mid-seventies when the singer-songwriter's prime had already been and gone) Being so young, it is amazing how clear-headed her take on death is: a child will be born to take her spot, she's not in fear of the end and she's not counting on an afterlife awaiting her ("I can swear there ain't no heaven and pray there ain't no hell").
Nyro was entering a period of remarkable creative growth, especially for someone of her age. "And When I Die" appeared on her 1967 debut album More Than a New Discovery (which was later changed to The First Songs, which makes it seem like a set of rough home demos rather than the first great work by a supremely talented individual). A year later she followed it with the brilliant Eli and the Thirteenth Confession. From that point, however, her work took a darker turn. While still outstanding, New York Tendaberry is filled with dense, piano-led torch songs, which would continue on 1970's Christmas and the Beads of Sweat. Had "And When I Die" been composed in, say, '69 it may well have been one of her darker numbers. Yet, it came while she was in her late teens and capable of dashing off such spirited, gospel-infused triumphs as "Wedding Bell Blues", "Stoney End", "Sweet Blindness", "Eli's Coming" and "Stoned Soul Picnic", all of which were hits for other artists. (While songs such as "Save the Country" and "Time and Love" from Tendaberry and "When I Was a Freeport and You Were the Main Drag" from Christmas were similarly bouncy, they had become less commonplace) While a more mature Nyro writing about her eventual death would almost certainly have still resulted in something superlative, it likely wouldn't have been as buoyant — and, as such, wouldn't have been as big a hit.
In a vacuum you might be blown away by Blood, Sweat and Tears' third and final Canadian number one. If you'd come to it cold or had you only been previously exposed to Peter, Paul and Mary's lifeless version from two years earlier then it must have sounded revelatory. Few would've had the opportunity to hear Nyro's astonishing original (which BS&T wisely chose not to stray far from) and in that context this cover is stellar. And I don't wish to crap on BS&T here. Like The 5th Dimension, Three Dog Night and Barbra Streisand, they recorded what is by far the most famous version of a particular Nyro classic but they couldn't hope to get within a solar system of the quality of the original. Most of this is down to Nyro herself since there really isn't much to choose from when it comes to the outstanding musicianship.
Opening with a harmonica solo, the BS&T version does have more of a downhome feel than Nyro's jazzier original. While the difference isn't great, it probably had more commercial appeal, even if the presence of these newfound hitmakers (and, just in case the point needs to be hammered further home, group that was allegedly more popular than The Beatles) was probably reason enough to have greater faith in their recording. (Not that the two were ever in competition with one another; "And When I Die" was never released as a single by Nyro herself) It feels like the crack BS&T band was having a lot of fun on this one, as they should have.
It's been nearly thirty years since Laura Nyro passed away. While it's hard to imagine what contemporaries like Nick Drake and Gram Parsons would have been up to had they lived longer, it's easy to picture Nyro as this beloved singer-songwriter veteran who puts out a new album every seven years or so and still lives a quiet, vaguely bohemian existence. A full life was denied her but at least an increasing number of music fans take take pleasure in the astonishing albums she but out while only barely out of her twenties. David Clayton Thomas did lead quite the life having only passed this past June. Hopefully they both exited this world in the spirit of this terrific song.
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