One of my favourite songs of all time. An elusive, solemn number. Neil's songwriting is , for me, the perfect combination of early twentieth century styles. His crooning may not be for all, but it's suits me fine. This song has been covered many times. In my opinion, most successfully by Tim Buckley and, bless his socks for giving it a go, by Billy Bragg. I think Buckley's version may be it's exemplification, but Neil's is warmer and less pretentious. You'll probably know Neil's work as he was the writer of "everybody's talkin'" Harry Nilsson's hit from Midnight Cowboy. I think he was a brill building writer. I once heard, though I've never found the track, he wrote for Buddy Holly, incidentally, another of my biggest heros. I've bin searching........
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Wow...thanks for hipping me to his original work. 'Everbody's Talking' is always on my list when I get brave enough to attempt to compile a FAVORITE SONGS ever list!
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So Tom, I don't mean to come off rude or anything, but who are you? I'm just intrested, thats all. Are you a singer, bassist, what? I'm ignorant of the whole thing. Please educate me. Again, I don't mean any disrespect, just I'm bad with words sometimes...
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very cool....i'm a big fan of the Buckley version but i never knew where the song actually came from
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i did not know fred neil wrote that classic i love that tune...A LOT
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Hi Tom, Thanks for sharing one of your favorite songs. Dolphins is a beautiful song. I'm familiar with Richie Haven's cover but have not heard the full song by Fred Neil. I love Everybody's Talkin' and remember it very well from the Academy Award winning movie Midnight Cowboy. Now I wonder why it wasn't even nominated for an award -- think it was most worthy of a nomination, at the least. Like it much more than the winner that year, Raindrops Keep Fallin' on My Head. It's funny that you should mention Everybody's Talkin', we (John and I) have been listening to Madeleine Peyroux's cover of that song on her Half the Perfect World album since its release in September of this year. As a matter of fact, I bought that CD when I was in Austin TX for ACL and La Zona Rosa.
Merry Christmas to you and your family, my friend.
See you in Chicago this January.
Love and Happiness, Susan
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Heh it's Sarah Brown... read your messages man!
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I read an article about Nick Venet holding Fred Neil captive in a LA recording studio. He was intent on getting a full album out of Mr. Neil. I wish I could remember where I read it (NY Times, Rolling Stone??) Anywho, Fred Neil was dying to get out of LA and Nick Venet told him he had to write just one more song before he would release Fred. The story goes that Fred went off into another room and 10 minutes later came out with "Everybody's Talking' (at me). Read the words. Makes perfect sense. Listening, always. Peace