A common musical theme, the best known version of a song by this title is
One by
Three Dog Night (U2's song by the same name is a close second), a big hit in 1969. The song was written by
Harry Nilsson, a mostly-forgotten figure now, but a well known songwriter and singer in the late 60s and early 70s and one of the first popularizers of
Randy Newman songs. His two biggest hits were covers,
Everybody's Talkin' At Me (from the film
Midnight Cowboy) and the bombastic
Without You, true 70s dreck. This is a great Nilsson original,
Without Her (you really should listen to the linked clip). He was also a drinking buddy of
John Lennon and
Ringo Starr and worked on recordings with all four of the former Beatles.
My favorite cover of the song is by
Aimee Mann. This is her 1995 version (later featured in the movie Magnolia). You may remember Aimee as the bass player and lead singer for
Til Tuesday which had a hit with
Voices Carry in the 1980s.
Here's her version of One (the woman in the video is not Mann).
And this is her 2009 version of Voices Carry.
Aimee also played one of the German nihilists in
The Big Lebowski. Another of the nihilists was portrayed by
Flea from the Red Hot Chili Peppers while
Peter Stormare played the lead nihilist (can you have a lead nihilist?). During his prior Coen Brothers appearance in
Fargo, Stormare inserted
Steve Buscemi into a wood chipper. And, to close the circle, Buscemi plays the gentle and constantly perplexed Theodore Donald "Donny" Kerabatsos in The Big Lebowski but he is not inserted into a wood chipper in that film though, as in the previous movie, his remains end up scattered on the ground.
