Dylan, Cohen and Harry Nilsson

A short one about an interesting sliding doors moment.

Louis Menand’s 2021 review in the New Yorker of Glenn Frankel’s “Shooting Midnight Cowboy: Art, Sex, Loneliness, Liberation, and the Making of a Dark Classic” contained a brilliant tidbit.

It's believed that a key element contributing to the mood of Midnight Cowboy (1969) was Harry Nilsson's song "Everybody's Talking". Nilsson apparently didn't like the song (I don't either) and had only recorded it on an album as a favour to his producer.

Menand reveals that Leonard Cohen pitched one of his most well known songs, "Bird on a Wire" to the director John Schlesinger OVER THE PHONE. I'm speculating that hearing the song over a tinny telephone line in the late '60s was a factor in it not being selected.

If that isn't enough of a wow moment, consider that Bob Dylan himself wrote a song specifically for the movie, thought to be "Lay Lady Lay," but he submitted it too late and it wasn't considered.

Quite cool.

How different might the vibe of the film have been if one of the other songs had been selected instead. And both the other songs went on to acquire far greater fame than Everybody's Talking, so perhaps everybody wins.