Everybody's Talkin'

The song was first released on Neil's second album, the eponymous Fred Neil, released in late 1966. It was composed towards the end of the session, after Neil had become anxious to wrap the album so he could return to his home in Miami, Florida. Manager Herb Cohen promised that if Neil wrote and recorded a final track, he could go. "Everybody's Talkin{{' "}}, recorded in one take, was the result.

Toby Creswell writing in 1001 Songs notes that the song had parallels to Neil's later life—like the hero of Midnight Cowboy, he looked "for fame to match his talents, discover[ed] that success in his profession isn't all its cracked up to be" and wanted to retreat.{{cite book | last = Creswell | first = Toby | title = 1001 Songs: The Great Songs of All Time and the Artists, Stories and Secrets Behind Them | publisher = Thunder's Mouth Press | year = 2006 | isbn = 1-56025-915-9 | page = 38}} Five years later, Neil permanently fulfilled the promise of the speaker in the song, rejecting fame to live the rest of his life in relative obscurity "where the sun keeps shining / thru' the pouring rain" in his home in Coconut Grove, Miami.Neil, Fred. "Everybody's Talkin'".{{cite book | title = Urban spacemen and wayfaring strangers: overlooked innovators and eccentric visionaries of '60s rock | author = Unterberger, Richie | publisher = Hal Leonard Corporation | year = 2000 | isbn = 0-87930-616-5 | page = [https://archive.org/details/urbanspacemenway0000unte/page/n276 267] | author-link = Richie Unterberger | url = https://archive.org/details/urbanspacemenway0000unte | url-access = registration }}

File:Harry Nilsson.png

Harry Nilsson was searching for a successful song when Rick Jarrard played the track for him, and he decided to record it on November 13, 1967.{{Cite web|date=November 13, 1967|title=Phonograph Recording Contract Blank - American Federations Of Musicians|url=https://www.wreckingcrewfilm.com/afmcontracts/Nilsson,Harry_EverybodysTalkin.pdf|website=Wrecking Crew Film}} It was eventually released on his 1968 album Aerial Ballet.{{cite web | url = {{AllMusic|class=song|id=t249518|pure_url=yes}} | title = Everybody's Talkin' | publisher = AllMusic | last = Sullivan | first = Denise | access-date = April 6, 2009}} When originally released as a single in July 1968, it managed to reach only No. 13 on the Billboard Bubbling Under the Hot 100 chart.

As director John Schlesinger was working on the 1969 film Midnight Cowboy, Derek Taylor recommended Nilsson for the soundtrack to Schlesinger. While Nilsson wrote a new song intended for the film's soundtrack ("I Guess the Lord Must Be in New York City"), Schlesinger instead preferred "Everybody's Talkin{{' "}}, and used it as the film's theme song.{{cite book | title = The Billboard Book of Number 1 Hits: The Inside Story Behind Every Number One Single on Billboard's Hot 100 from 1955 to the Present | last = Bronson | first = Fred | edition = 5 | publisher = Billboard Books | year = 2003 | isbn = 0-8230-7677-6 | page = 307 | quote = Nilsson had submitted his own song for the Dustin Hoffman—John Voigt film, but the producers preferred the Neil tune. Undaunted, Harry released "I Guess the Lord Must Be in New York City" as his second single, and it peaked at 34 in November 1969.}} Nilsson re-recorded the song with a slightly different arrangement from the Aerial Ballet version, to better adapt to the music lengths required for various sequences in the film.{{cite book |last1=Shipton |first1=Alyn |title=Nilsson: The Life of a Singer-Songwriter |date=8 August 2013 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=978-0-19-975657-5 |page=67 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=QZceAAAAQBAJ&dq=Everybody%27s+Talkin+nilsson+re-recorded&pg=PA67 |access-date=17 November 2024 |language=en}}

Following the success of Midnight Cowboy in theaters, RCA re-released the Aerial Ballet version as a single, with this re-release becoming a hit, peaking at No. 6 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart and No. 2 on the Billboard Easy Listening chart. The song and movie have since become closely associated with one another;{{cite book | last = Larkin | first = Colin | title = The Guinness encyclopedia of popular music | volume = 3 | publisher = Guinness Pub | year = 1992 | isbn = 1-882267-03-6 | page = 1800}} Nilsson's cover is also known as "Everybody's Talkin' (Theme from Midnight Cowboy)".{{cite book | last = Ferguson | first = Gary Lynn | title = Song finder: a title index to 32,000 popular songs in collections, 1854–1992 | publisher = Greenwood Publishing Group | year = 1995 | isbn = 0-313-29470-4 | page = [https://archive.org/details/songfindertitlei00ferg/page/92 92] | url = https://archive.org/details/songfindertitlei00ferg/page/92 }} William J. Mann, in his biography of Schlesinger, noted that "one cannot imagine Midnight Cowboy now without 'Everybody's Talkin'".{{cite book | last= Mann | first= William J. | title= Edge of midnight: the life of John Schlesinger | publisher= Watson-Guptill Publications | year= 2005 | isbn= 0-8230-8366-7 | page= [https://archive.org/details/edgeofmidnightli00mann/page/331 331] | url= https://archive.org/details/edgeofmidnightli00mann/page/331 }}

According to the AFM contract sheet, the following musicians played on the track.{{cite web |url=https://www.wreckingcrewfilm.com/afmcontracts/Nilsson,Harry_EverybodysTalkin.pdf |title=Everybody's Talkin' AFM Contract|publisher=American Federation of Musicians |website=The Wrecking Crew |accessdate=December 29, 2022}}

• Harry Nilsson – vocals
• Al Casey – acoustic guitars
• Mike Melvoin – piano
• Larry Knechtel – bass guitar
• Jim Gordon – drums
• Alfred Lustgarten – violin
• Jerome Reisler – violin
• Wilbert Nuttycombe – violin
• Leonard Atkins – violin
• Darrel Terwilliger – violin
• Arnold Belnick – violin

In addition, not on the AFM contract sheet, playing the banjo on the track is Randy Cierley Sterling.{{cite web | url=https://www.sandiegoreader.com/bands/randy-sterling/ | title=Randy Sterling | San Diego Reader }}

Described in The Rock Snob*s Dictionary as an "anti-urban plaint",{{cite book | title = The rock snob*s dictionary: an essential lexicon of rockological knowledge | last = Kamp | first = David | author2 = Steven Daly | publisher = Random House, Inc. | year = 2005 | isbn = 0-7679-1873-8 | page = [https://archive.org/details/rocksnobsdiction00kamp/page/76 76] | url = https://archive.org/details/rocksnobsdiction00kamp/page/76 }} "Everybody's Talkin{{' "}} depicts the introverted speaker's inability to connect with others. Not hearing or truly seeing them, the speaker declares an intention to leave for the ocean and the summer breeze. AllMusic's Denise Sullivan describes Neil's version as "positively spooky and Spartan" by comparison to Nilsson's better-known cover, whose arrangement she felt captured the "freedom, shrouded in regret and loss, implied in the lyric".

The line "Going where the weather suits my clothes" is paraphrased from "Going Down the Road Feeling Bad", a traditional American folk song.

Nilsson's single for the song sold over a million copies and charted on both Billboard{{'}}s Adult Contemporary and Pop Singles charts, reaching numbers 2 and 6 respectively in 1969.{{cite web | url = {{Allmusic|class=artist|id=p5032|pure_url=yes}} | title = Harry Nilsson, Billboard Singles | publisher = AllMusic | access-date = April 6, 2009}} Nilsson's single also won a Grammy that year.{{cite web | url = {{Allmusic|class=artist|id=p5032|pure_url=yes}} | title = Harry Nilsson, GRAMMY Awards | publisher = AllMusic | access-date = April 6, 2009}} The song became a global success and was followed by international appearances by Nilsson to perform it.{{cite book | last = Simpson | first = Paul | title = The Rough Guide to Cult Pop: The Songs, the Artists, the Genres, the Dubious Fashions | publisher = Rough Guides | year = 2003 | isbn = 1-84353-229-8 | page = [https://archive.org/details/roughguidetocult00simp/page/148 148] | url = https://archive.org/details/roughguidetocult00simp/page/148 }}

Nilsson denied that the song made him successful. Creswell, writing in 1001 Songs, claims that the hit "made Nilsson a superstar," exposing him to a much broader fan base and altering his reputation from solely that of a songwriter to a singer. After Nilsson's death, Billboard noted that Nilsson remained popularly remembered for his covers of "Everybody's Talkin{{' "}} and "Without You".{{cite magazine | title = Harry Nilsson dies at age 52 | magazine = Billboard | date = January 29, 1994 | volume = 106 | issue = 5 | issn = 0006-2510 | page = 110 | url = https://books.google.com/books?id=HQgEAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA110}} Neil, too, is largely remembered for this song.{{cite book | title = Rock & roll's most wanted: the top 10 book of lame lyrics, egregious egos, and other oddities | first = Stuart | last = Shea | publisher = Brassey's | year = 2002 | isbn = 1-57488-477-8 | pages = 77–78}} But although Neil's second album was re-released in 1969 under the title Everybody's Talkin' to capitalize on the success of the song, Neil himself shunned the limelight, retiring from the industry after his final album in 1971 to live quietly in the Florida Keys with the millions of dollars he is estimated to have earned on royalties from the song. In keeping with the song's position in the works of both artists, it has been used to title several "greatest hits" compilation albums—a 1997 release by BMG, a 2001 release by Armoury and a 2006 release by RCA for Nilsson and a 2005 release for Neil by Raven Records entitled Echoes of My Mind: The Best of 1963–1971.

The song is highly regarded in the industry, having become a standard.{{cite book | title = The New Rolling Stone Album Guide: Completely Revised and Updated | edition = 4th, revised | last = Brackett | first = Nathan | author2 = Christian David Hoard | author3 = Rolling Stone Magazine | publisher = Simon and Schuster | year = 2004 | isbn = 0-7432-0169-8 | pages = [https://archive.org/details/newrollingstonea00brac/page/572 572–573] | url = https://archive.org/details/newrollingstonea00brac/page/572 }} Songwriter Jerry Leiber described it as "a very strange and beautiful song", among the "truly beautiful melodically and lyrically" songs by Fred Neil, who was described by Rolling Stone as "[r]eclusive, mysterious and extravagantly gifted". A 2006 article in The New York Times characterizes the song as "a landmark of the classic-rock era."{{cite news | title = The echoes of his mind just keep reverberating | first = David | last = Browne | date = September 24, 2006 | url = https://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9A05E4D81031F937A1575AC0A9609C8B63 | work=The New York Times | access-date = April 6, 2009}} The song's popularity has proven persistent; through 2005, according to figures from Broadcast Music Incorporated reported in The New York Times, the song had aired on radio and television 6.7 million times. In 2004, the song was listed by the American Film Institute as No. 20 in its "top 100 movie songs" for the first 100 years of film.{{cite news|last=Nason |first=Pat |title=AFI's top 100 movie songs. |publisher=UPI Perspectives |date=June 23, 2004 |url=http://www.accessmylibrary.com/coms2/summary_0286-7639327_ITM |access-date=April 6, 2009 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121016053420/http://www.accessmylibrary.com/coms2/summary_0286-7639327_ITM |archive-date=October 16, 2012 }}

In 1999, the 1969 recording of "Everybody's Talkin'" by Harry Nilsson on RCA Victor Records was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame.{{Cite web |title=GRAMMY HALL OF FAME AWARD |url=https://www.grammy.com/awards/hall-of-fame-award#e |access-date=2023-07-28 |website=www.grammy.com}}

Since Nilsson's recording achieved chart success, the song has been covered by many other artists—almost 100 as of 2006. Among these are versions by Louis Armstrong, The Beautiful South, Tony Bennett, Jimmy Buffett, Glen Campbell, Crosby, Stills & Nash, Neil Diamond, Bobby Goldsboro, Lena Horne, Engelbert Humperdinck, Julio Iglesias, Luna, Harold Melvin and the Blue Notes, Liza Minnelli, Willie Nelson, Leonard Nimoy, Madeleine Peyroux, Iggy Pop, Spanky and Our Gang, Bill Withers, and Stevie Wonder.

Nilsson's version was sampled in 2002 by Paul Oakenfold on "Starry Eyed Surprise" and in 2004 by the Go! Team on "Everyone's a V.I.P. to Someone". The string riff from an instrumental recording by Hugo Winterhalter was prominently sampled by Moby on "Extreme Ways".{{Cite web |title=Moby's 'Extreme Ways' sample of Hugo Winterhalter's 'Everybody's Talkin'' {{!}} WhoSampled |url=https://www.whosampled.com/sample/24903/Moby-Extreme-Ways-Hugo-Winterhalter-Everybody%27s-Talkin%27/ |access-date=2023-11-27 |website=WhoSampled}}

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Fred Neil version

Nilsson version

The Beautiful South version

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Nilsson version

The Beautiful South version

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{{Certification Table Entry|region=United Kingdom|type=single|artist=Nilsson|title=Everybody's Talkin'|award=Gold|relyear=2004|certyear=2023|id=16475-450-1|access-date=June 12, 2023|note=Nilsson version}}

{{Certification Table Entry|region=United Kingdom|type=single|artist=Beautiful South|title=Everybody's Talkin'|award=Silver|relyear=2004|certyear=2023|id=16475-1846-1|access-date=December 15, 2023|note=The Beautiful South version}}

{{Certification Table Bottom|nosales=true|noshipments=true|streaming=true}}

{{Reflist}}

• {{YouTube|BFKDyVPkonc|Listen to "Everybody's Talkin'"}}

{{Harry Nilsson}}

{{Bill Withers}}

{{Julio Iglesias}}

{{The Beautiful South}}

{{Grammy Award for Best Male Pop Vocal Performance}}

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Category:1966 songs

Category:1968 singles

Category:1969 singles

Category:1994 singles

Category:Harry Nilsson songs

Category:The Beautiful South songs

Category:Grammy Hall of Fame Award recipients

Category:Grammy Award for Best Male Pop Vocal Performance

Category:American soft rock songs

Category:Song recordings produced by Nick Venet

Category:RPM Top Singles number-one singles

Category:Bill Withers songs

Category:RCA Victor singles

Category:Songs written by Fred Neil