Hear Tracy Bonham Cover “Everybody’s Talkin’” From This is The Town: A Tribute to Nilsson (Volume 1)

Updated:

December 15, 2013 7:42 pm

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On February 4, The Royal Potato Family label will release a tribute album to the late music legend Harry Nilsson. Dubbed This is The Town: A Tribute to Nilsson (Volume 1), it features artists like Willy Mason, Langhorne Slim, Dawn Landes, Low Cut Connie, and Nilsson’s daughter, Annie Nilsson.

One of the standout tracks is Tracy Bonham’s take on the iconic theme song from the movie Midnight Cowboy, “Everybody’s Talkin’,” written by Fred Neil.

“This song resonates with the lonely place inside most people,” Bonham tells American Songwriter. “In fact, I wondered if it was about death and dying, but I most likely thought that because Nilsson is deceased, and perhaps it was some premonition he had. I would keep mixing up the lyrics at the end by saying, ‘I won’t let you leave this world behind.’ I had to check the lyrics to see that wasn’t what he was saying.

“The more I absorbed the song, as we were working in the studio, it became my own song of escaping from the chatter of the 21st century digital flickering, poking, pinging, dinging noises of constant communication.”