Fred Neil wrote “Everybody’s Talkin’” and recorded it at Capitol’s studios on 13 October 1966 for his album Fred Neil, released that year. By one account, Neil was anxious to finish the album so he could return to his home in Miami, Florida, and his manager Herb Cohen promised he could leave if he wrote and recorded one more track; the result was this song, recorded in one take. Peter Childs, who played on the session, later said it was not the last song recorded. Neil left the music business after a final album in 1971 and lived the rest of his life quietly in Florida.
The narrator cannot hear what the people around him are saying, only the echoes of his own mind, and sets out for a place where the sun keeps shining through the rain. The line about going where the weather suits his clothes is paraphrased from the traditional song “Going Down the Road Feeling Bad.”
Harry Nilsson recorded it on 13 November 1967 for Aerial Ballet (RCA Victor, 1968), where it was released as a single in July 1968 and reached only No. 13 on Billboard’s Bubbling Under chart. Director John Schlesinger then chose it as the theme of the 1969 film Midnight Cowboy. After the film’s success RCA reissued Nilsson’s single, which reached No. 6 on the Hot 100 and No. 2 on the Easy Listening chart in 1969. Nilsson won the Grammy Award for Best Contemporary Vocal Performance, Male, for it at the 1970 ceremony, and Neil’s album was reissued under the title Everybody’s Talkin’.
The Seldom Scene recorded it for Changes (Rounder, released 7 June 2019), an album of songs by singer-songwriters of the folk era, recorded mostly at The Bar in Gaithersburg, Maryland. Lou Reid sings lead, with Dudley Connell on guitar, Reid on mandolin, Ron Stewart on banjo, Fred Travers on dobro and Ronnie Simpkins on bass.
