HARRY NILSSON - EVERYBODY'S TALKIN'

EVERYBODY'S TALKIN'

HARRY NILSSON

SONGWRITER: FRED NEIL

COUNTRY: U.S.A.

ALBUM: AERIAL BALLET

LABEL: RCA VICTOR

GENRE: POP

YEAR: 1969

"Everybody's Talkin'"is a songwritten and recorded by singer-songwriter Fred Neil 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.Harry Edward Nilsson III (June 15, 1941 – January 15, 1994), usually credited as Nilsson, was an American singer-songwriter who achieved the peak of his commercial success in the early 1970s. His work is characterized by pioneering overdub experiments, returns to the Great American Songbook, and fusions of Caribbean sounds. A tenor with a three-and-a-half octave range, Nilsson was one of the few major pop-rock recording artists of his era to achieve significant commercial success without ever performing major public concerts or undertaking regular tours.

Born in Brooklyn, Nilsson fled to Los Angeles as a teenager and landed a job as a computer programmer at a bank. It was there that he cultivated an interest in musical composition and close-harmony singing, and was successful in having some of his songs recorded by various artists such as the Monkees, and later, Three Dog Night, who had a No. 5 hit with his song "One". In 1967, he debuted on RCA Victor with the LP Pandemonium Shadow Show, followed with a variety of releases that include a collaboration with Randy Newman (Nilsson Sings Newman, 1970) and the original children's story The Point! (1971). After a brief period of widely publicized, alcohol-fueled antics with John Lennon—the two collaborating in 1974 for the album Pussy Cats—Nilsson left RCA, and his record output subsequently diminished. In response to Lennon's 1980 death by shooting, he took a hiatus from the music industry to campaign for gun control. For the rest of his life, he recorded only on sporadic occasions. In 1994, Nilsson died of a heart attack while in the midst of recording new material for a since-unreleased comeback album.

Everybody's talking at me

I don't hear a word they're saying

Only the echoes of my mind

People stopping staring

I can't see their faces

Only the shadows of their eyes

I'm going where the sun keeps shining

Thru' the pouring rain

Going where the weather suits my clothes

Backing off of the North East wind

Sailing on summer breeze

And skipping over the ocean like a stone

Everybody's talking at me

I can't hear a word they're saying

Only the echoes of my mind

I won't let you leave my love behind

No, I won't let you leave

Won't… Ah-haaaa!

I won't let you leave my love behind.