This was featured in
Midnight Cowboy, a 1969 movie about a male prostitute in New York City starring Dustin Hoffman and Jon Voight (Angelina Jolie's dad). Although it is the most memorable and popular song from the film, the film's actual title song is "Midnight Cowboy Theme," a haunting instrumental written by the prolific songwriter John Barry, who has done numerous soundtracks. You will recognize the theme by the lonely harmonica which serves as the main instrument. There are lyrics, though the song has rarely been recorded as a vocal.
A bit of trivia:
Midnight Cowboy is the only movie rated X or NC-17 to win an Oscar for Best Picture.
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Suggestion credit:
Bobby G - Boston, MA
"Everybody's Talkin'" wasn't written for Midnight Cowboy - it predates the film by two years. The folk singer Fred Neil wrote the song and released it on his 1967 self-titled album, the first in which he used electric instruments. Neil was a very influential singer who made a name for himself playing Greenwich Village clubs with people like John Sebastian, David Crosby, and Stephen Stills. He pretty much disappeared around 1971, resurfacing every now and then for various events. He had a small, but dedicated group of fans and looked like he was on his way to stardom, but apparently that was never his goal. Neil died in his Florida home in 2001.
Bob Dylan submitted his song "
Lay Lady Lay" for
Midnight Cowboy, but "Everybody's Talkin'" - which was much more appropriate for the film - was used instead.
This song won Nilsson the Grammy award for Best Contemporary Vocal Performance, Male.
Nilsson issued "Everybody's Talkin'" as a single in 1968, but it was pulled and released a year later when the movie came out.
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Fred Neil released his version of the song as a single in 1968, but it didn't do very well. Shortly after Midnight Cowboy came out, Neil's version was re-released along with his album.
In the 1994 movie
Forrest Gump, when Lt. Dan says, "I'm walking here!" to the cab that almost hits him, "Everybody's Talkin'" is playing in the background, a nod to a similar scene in
Midnight Cowboy.
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Suggestion credit:
Bertrand - Paris, France
Leonard Nimoy, who played Spock on the TV series Star Trek, did a very interesting cover version for his 1970 album The New World Of Leonard Nimoy.
This was one of the first songs Phil Ramone engineered at the 7th Avenue studio in New York City that he purchased from Columbia Records. He would later record Billy Joel, Dionne Warwick, Paul Simon and many others there.
The album title, Aerial Ballet, was inspired by the aerial ballet act performed by Nilsson's Swedish grandparents, who were circus performers and dancers.
This was featured in the 2006 comedy Borat, starring Sacha Baron Cohen, and in the 2013 comedy The Hangover Part III, starring Bradley Cooper, Ed Helms, and Zach Galifianakis.
Dustin Hoffman would go on to narrate Nilsson's animated film
The Point!, featuring the hit "
Me And My Arrow," in its original telecast on ABC in 1971.
The scores of artists who've covered "Everybody's Talkin'" apart from Nilsson include Willie Nelson, Stevie Wonder, Crosby Stills and Nash, Bill Withers, Neil Diamond, and Glenn Campbell for his final album, Adios, Glen Campbell. But Neil had his own favorites.
"One time Fred and I were driving over the Seven Mile Bridge heading to Miami, and he told me about he and this other kid went to see Louis Armstrong as teenagers," his close friend Ric O'Barry told Uncut magazine. "Fred was a huge Satchmo fan. Suddenly he whipped out the CD in the car and its Satchmo singing 'Everybody's Talkin'.' Fred was just so honored by that."