When asked about his use of "Everybody's Talkin'" in his 1969 film Midnight Cowboy, director John Schlesinger described it as a:
Total, total fluke. My assistant suggested it. I didn't know who Harry Nilsson was at the time but lyrically it's perfect as well as rhythmically. The studio didn't want to buy it, though, because it was already published and they didn't have the rights. But when we showed the film to UA for the first time, the head of music leapt up said "Where did you get that song from? That is a fabulous song!" So we told him he'd heard it six months earlier when we'd brought it by, and he said
Well, I don't remember. We gotta get it, we gotta get it!"
-- John Schlesinger[1]