Psychedelic Lunch

Welcome to our “Psychedelic Lunch” series where we find out how deep the rabbit hole really goes and explore music and musicians from the 60’s to today. Enjoy the trip!

Three Dog Night, One: Release October 16, 1968

This was written by Harry Nilsson, a popular songwriter who had hits as a singer with “Everybody’s Talkin'” and “Without You.” Nilsson was inspired to write “One” from the rhythm of a telephone busy signal that he kept hearing.

This is about loneliness. It was used in the film Recess: School’s Out when the character of TJ is lonely and bored after all his friends go to summer camps.

This was the first song on Three Dog Night’s first album. It was one of 21 US Top 40 hits for the group, who did very well with songs written by other artists. Other hits by Three Dog Night include “Joy to the World” (written by Hoyt Axton), “Mama Told Me (Not to Come)” (written by Randy Newman) and “The Show Must Go On” (written by Leo Sayer).

Aimee Mann covered this for the 1999 film Magnolia. It was used in the title sequence, and became part of a soundtrack that put Mann back in the spotlight. In the ’80s, she was lead singer of the group Til Tuesday.

Three Dog Night had three members at the time that were capable of singing lead vocals. This track went to Chuck Negron.This song was used on the Family Guyepisode “Brian Wallows And Peter’s Swallows,” were it was played at a laser show.