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Everybody's Talkin'

"Everybody's Talkin'"
Nilsson-everybodys-talkin-rca-victor-US-vinyl-1969-rerelease.jpg
A-side label of 1969 US vinyl rerelease
Single by Nilsson
from the album Aerial Ballet
B-side "Don't Leave Me"
Released July 1968
Format 7-inch 45 rpm
Recorded 1968
Genre Contemporary folk
Label RCA Victor
Writer(s) Fred Neil
Producer(s) Rick Jarrard
Nilsson singles chronology
"One"
(1968)
"Everybody's Talkin'"
(1968)
"I Will Take You There"
(1968)

"Everybody's Talkin'" is a song written and recorded by singer-songwriter Fred Neil in 1966. A version of the song performed by Harry Nilsson became a hit in 1969, reaching No. 6 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart and winning a Grammy Award after it was featured in the film Midnight Cowboy. The song, which describes the singer's desire to retreat from other people to the ocean, is among the most famous works of both artists, and has been covered by many other notable performers. The song later appeared in the 1994 film Forrest Gump and is also on the film's soundtrack album. It also appeared in the comedy film Borat, on The Hangover Part III soundtrack and in the English television show Black Books.

The song was first released on Neil's second album, the self-titled Fred Neil, released in early 1967. 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 of 1001 Songs noted 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. 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.

Nilsson was searching for a potentially successful song when Rick Jarrard played the track for him, and he decided to release it on his 1968 album Aerial Ballet. When released as a single in July 1968, it only managed to reach No. 113 on the Billboard Bubbling Under the Hot 100 chart. After the song was featured as the theme song in the film Midnight Cowboy in 1969, the song was re-released as a single and became a hit, peaking at No. 6 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart and No. 2 on the Billboard Easy Listening chart.


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