When Harry Sang Stevie

The happy occasion of Keen Co.'s upcoming revival of the Sondheim outtake anthology Marry Me a Little is a fine excuse to trot out this novelty, which not enough people have heard: a demo of the title tune, which Sondheim commissioned from Harry Nilsson in 1969 as a gift for a friend. (It would go on to get cut from 1970's Company, though it's now often reinstated as a first-act closer.) If you think the Company cast album has whiffs of bell-bottoms and puka shells (those funky guitars and organs), check this out; it really sounds for all the world like Sondheim trying his hand at a sort of late-'60s prog-pop tune, something the Fifth Dimension or the Mama and Papas or Art Garfunkel could have covered. Warning: You can almost get a contact high from this recording.