Everybody’s Talkin’: Lou Waxman on the Midnight Cowboy Soundtrack

May 31, 2026

To this day, Midnight Cowboy is the only X-rated film to win an academy award. It won three: Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Adapted Screenplay. If you haven’t seen the movie, do not get all hot and bothered. It is not a porn. A 1969 X-rating is comparable to an NC-17, but Lou suspects Midnight Cowboywould be an R-rated film nowadays. There are sex, drugs and rock and roll elements in the film, but jaded viewers will consider this shit tame. The gay context may still ruffle a few feathers. Gay context always does. John Schlesinger, the director, was one of the few openly gay directors in mainstream film in the New Hollywood Era. Midnight Cowboy was his coming out.

This begs the question what full-on porn deserved an Oscar nomination? In Lou’s opinion the clear answer is Deep Throatfrom 1972. The Godfather won Best Picture that year and deservedly so, but it could be argued that no film in 1972 was more groundbreaking, important, and influential than Deep Throat. Like Harry Reems’ cock, the movie was huge. It went mainstream and engendered the modern porn industry as we know it. It is the Birth of a Nation of porn. Or Méliès' A Trip to the Moon. A true landmark. Last Tango in Paris, also from 1972, is the above ground version. Without a doubt compared to mainstream offerings on sexuality, such as Last Tango, Deep Throat is a crap movie, and Linda Lovelace is a crap actress, but in terms of film history is it iconic and on the level of The Godfather and deserves a place with nominees Cabaret, Deliverance, The Emigrants, and Sounder. In some respects, it is comparable to Sounder of that year in terms of tackling trailblazing subject matter given short shrift by the Studios.

For what it is worth, New Wave Hookers gets Lou’s vote for best picture of 1985, and Lou has never even seen it. It is a movie whispered about. Copies are probably in a crate in the Library of Congress somewhere like at the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark and if you actually get a copy and put it in your Betamax your face will no doubt melt. You will die. The tape in The Ring is a bootlegged copy of New Wave Hookers. Lou is warning you. Do not track down this movie.

Lou mentions Midnight Cowboy because a copy of the soundtrack found its way into The Vogue. Everybody talks about “Everybody’s Talkin’” and Lou guesses that makes sense. Lots of people that Lou respects go ape shit for Nilsson. These are the same dudes that told Lou to buy Randy Newman records and even to go out and buy Nilsson Sings Newman. This stuff is strictly NFL: Not for Lou. Out of due diligence, Lou has his share of Nilsson and Newman, but they were played once, restacked, and blissfully forgotten, never to be heard again. Listening to “Everybody’s Talkin’” here doesn’t change any of this. For those interested, “Cowboy” by Randy Newman was considered for the Midnight Cowboy soundtrack as was Bob Dylan’s “Lay, Lady, Lay”. Bob could not complete the song in time. An interesting What-If.

That said, Lou loves himself some Nilsson because he was a complete boozer and Nilsson made John Lennon interesting during the Lost Weekend period. Long live The Hollywood Vampires. Lou is not a Lennon man. Or McCartney or Harrison for that matter Give Lou some Ringo Starr. In particular, give Lou some Ringo Starr in Caveman. John Matuszak as Tonda. His best role. Forget The Goonies. Barbara Bach’s Lana is also killer. Ringo and Barbara met on the set. Zug Zug in the trailerfor sure. Did Lou mention the movie has caveman dialogue? Thirty made up words is all you need. Like Pauline Kael says, Caveman is a classic. No shit.

The title track of Midnight Cowboy was composed by John Barry, who also composed five other tracks on the album,including the “Midnight Cowboy Theme”. Lou loves himself some John Barry. This has nothing to do with the “James Bond Theme” or the five Oscar wins or the other numerous Oscar nominations and the Grammy’s galore and all that shit. Lou loves the “James Bond Theme” as much as the next guy, but that is not John Barry’s greatest score in Lou’s opinion. No, Barry’s greatest score is that he was married to Jane Birkin from 1965-1968. The mind reels. Birkin was a complete smoke show and her vocal stylings on “Je t’aime . . . moi non plus” with Serge Gainsbourg makes Donna Summer sound like Whitney Houstonin “I Want to Dance With Somebody (Who Loves Me)”. Birkin met Gainsbourg on the set of Slogan in 1968. The rest is history. Bad news for John Barry.

The British are a funny lot. They are notoriously ugly in general but once in a blue moon the inbreeding sorts itself out and a Jane Birkin arrives into the world, like Uma Thurman in The Adventures of Baron Von Munchausen. Or a Terence Stamp. Very strange. You can talk about John Williams all you want but Williams’ music never attracted anyone to the level of Birkin. John Williams can fuck a duck as far as Lou is concerned. Jaws be damned.

The Jane Birkin of Lou’s youth was Jane March. British if you can believe it. March is almost the same age as Lou and seeing her in The Lover and Color of Night was, Lou would have to say, er, inspiring. Her sex scenes in Color of Night were rated the greatest of all time by Maxim. The editors of Maxim should know. They are horndogs. March blazed on the silver screen for a hot minute and then largely disappeared with all her Razzies. In The Lover, March was the standout simply by existing. Lou will always have his memories.

That said, Lou would rather read The Lover again than revisit the movie. Lou fondly remembers all the Marguerite Duras reissues from that period. The story of The Lover was based on Duras’ book, which was based on her life experience. Lou definitely fucks with Duras. In the 1990s, her books were at library sales and used bookstores everywhere and Lou slapped down his cash to pick them up. Duras was a fascinating figure and a damn good writer. Her track record in film is not really toLou’s tastes, but she went for it and took no prisoners. Hiroshima, Mon Amour and The Truck for example do not do it for Lou. The Truck brought down the house at Cannes in 1977, if you can call audience outrage and walk-outs that. Duras did it all in film: screenwriter, actor, and director. In everything Duras did, she did not give two fucks about what people thought. She enjoyed getting a rise. Even if it was a stand up and walk out. Admirable.

Elephant’s Memory sings a few songs on the Midnight Cowboysoundtrack as well. Like Nilsson they have a connection withJohn Lennon and toured with him during the period covered by the recent documentary on John and Yoko. But what really caught Lou’s eye was “He Quit Me Man” sung by Leslie Miller. Lou is too lazy to look her up; she is probably super interesting. OK, I could not resist. She is, as expected, very interesting. For example, she recorded an answer record to Sgt. Barry Sandler’s “Ballad of the Green Berets” called “He Wore the Green Beret”. Who knew?

Everything on this soundtrack is interesting when you get down to it. Nothing more so than the fact that Warren W. Zevon composed “He Quit Me Man”. This is half a decade before his debut solo album in 1976, and almost a full decade before Excitable Boy, which is one of Lou’s favorite spins. Along with Jim Carroll’s Catholic Boy. Let’s hear it for the boys. As Lou has mentioned before, Zevon is a David Letterman favorite, and the extended play on YouTube of all of Zevon’s Letterman appearances is a must watch. Zevon’s final appearance is on par with the end of Midnight Cowboy for inducing the sads. Lou cried during both and he does not care who knows it. Jane Birkin likes the sensitive types and that is good enough for Lou.