Three Dog Night – "One" (1969)

One is the loneliest number that you'll ever do

Two can be as bad as one

It's the loneliest number since the number one

[NOTE: Three Dog Night's cover of "One" was one of the first recordings to be featured in a 2 or 3 lines post.  Here’s a lightly edited version of my original 2010 post about "One," one of this year's inductees into the 2 OR 3 LINES “GOLDEN DECADE” HIT SINGLES HALL OF FAME.] 

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"One" was Three Dog Night's first big hit.  I vividly remember hearing it on the radio while sitting in a Central Missouri State University dorm room during Missouri Boys' State in the summer of 1969.  

I'm not writing about it because it's a perfect little 3-minute AM-radio song ("PL3MAMRS") – although it is – but because I hope I can chase down an old rumor I've wondered about for years.

I heard that the committee that planned the 1969 junior-senior prom at Parkwood was having trouble deciding which of two bands to hire to play at the dance.  The band that was eventually chosen was a local favorite, the Pink Peach Mob (one of whose members, Steve Gaines, later joined Lynyrd Skynyrd and was killed in the 1977 crash of that band's airplane).

The story goes that the other band was Three Dog Night, an up-and-coming California group that would have cost a lot more money to book than the local guys.  Later, of course, Three Dog Night hit it very big, and everyone who went to the dance missed out on being able to bore their friends, co-workers, children, and grandchildren with the story of how a hugely successful band – they had eleven top-10 hits (including three number ones) – had played at their high school prom.

Maybe Three Dog Night was a candidate to play at the 1968 prom, not the 1969 one as I've always heard – looking at the band's recording history, 1968 would work a lot better.  

Surely some of my Joplin readers know whether this is a true story or just an urban legend.  Please -- post a comment and help me clear this up once and for all.

By the way, I see that Three Dog Night played at the Downstream Casino this past July 4 – so they did make it to Joplin, just 42 or so years late.  

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"One" was written by Harry Nilsson, a very good but very odd singer-songwriter.  If you don't believe me, click here and give a listen to his song, "You're Breakin' My Heart":

You're breakin' my heart

You're tearin' it apart

So f*ck you!

Nilsson's biggest hits were "Everybody's Talkin' " (the theme song to the movie "Midnight Cowboy"), "Me and My Arrow," and "Without You," which was a #1 hit in 1971.  But my two favorite Nilsson songs – both from the 1972 Nilsson Schmilsson album – were "Jump Into the Fire" (which was featured during the scene in "Goodfellas" when Ray Liotta is driving all over town with a bunch of guns in his trunk while a helicopter appears to be following him) and "Coconut" (which was featured in the closing credits of "Reservoir Dogs"):

You put de lime in the coconut, you drink 'em both together

Put de lime in the coconut, then you'll feel better 

Click here to watch a truly bizarre video of "Coconut" from a 1971 BBC television special.

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Nilsson released "One" as a single a year before Three Dog Night did.  Click here to listen to his version of the song, which went nowhere – it's a lovely recording, but no chance it was going to get played on the radio in 1968.  

Click here to listen to the Three Dog Night version of "One."

Click on the link below if you'd like to buy the recording from Amazon: