Randy Newman: C or D/S & D

Randy's first LP is an extraordinary piece of work, one of the most ambitious records ever made. It succeeds on every level. Sail Away, Good Old Boys are also.... gosh Fritz, you're right. These *are* difficult records to describe without sounding trite. Nilsson Sigs Newman is also up here as one of the greatest records ever made. Yep, another banal trte statement. But 'tis true.

And he finally won an Oscar last night. Hoo-ray!!!

I actually just bought a new copy of "Good Old Boys" yesterday. Even now, I'm afraid that somebody's going to catch me singing along with "Rednecks" and jump to the wrong conclusion. That ought to count for something!

Newman's an honest American artist, and perhaps one of the few well known guys even slightly connected in show-biz who'll acknowledge all those contradictions in American society and hang them out to dry -- a real-life Trojan Horse

like Jack Nitzsche, he might be a backroom boy in the bullshit showbiz world, but here's a guy who delivers America faithfully when it's his turn to make an album -- never confuse his work with his art -- and full credit to him for clearly distinguishing the two

Also search: his very funny/sharp Oscar acceptance speech Sunday night.

I've always been on the fence about Randy. I wouldn't hesitate to call myself a fan, and that includes records like Little Criminals and Born Again even as they creep toward total immersion in dim Tom Lehreresque satire . . . that mars even the early records. (Which was the record with "It's Money That Matters"? That was awful.)

I actually think many of his best songs were written very early. His first album has some brilliant ones but unfortunately Newman hasn't really learnd to use his voice to his best advantage yet. Someone should compile a collection of singles written by Randy and performed by others, from the days when he was a songwriter-for-hire à la Carole King.

Dusty's version of "I've Been Wrong Before" is the best thing I associate with Randy. "Suzanne" is pretty great too. Although I adore Leonard Cohen it is a pretty nice riposte just the same.

As for his supposed nastiness (he often repeats the line that he was the most offensive thing on the radio before gangsta rap), I actually wish he would have indulged it a bit more, especially on Good Old Boys which seems like a bit of a hedge to me.

I still don't think the record is all that great, except for a few stray things like "Louisiana 1927" and "Guity."

Hm, I don't know what's come over me; I've been needlessly argumentative lately, which Lord knows is not what this board needs.

Randy Newman is, again in my 'umble opinion, the best songwriter of the last...name it. Also, a great orchestrator, arranger...in short, he leaves most of the folks who've done popular music since about 1965 in the dust. Unless, of course, craft and all that old-fashioned stuff don't mean anything to you, which I can well understand how it might not...a conflicted American artist and one that we as conflicted Americans should be right proud of...I've listened to 'em all and really there's not a bad Randy Newman record with the possible exception of "Little Criminals."

Newman's ability to turn jokey premises into genuinely moving (or disturbing) performances is pretty impressive, and I think most of his power comes from his ambiguity: he's always been on the fence about everything - which, ironically, (I think ironically: I've always been wary of using that word ever since an editor told me 99% of the time it was used wrongly) can make it hard to really love, not just admire him. But when Newman sings certain songs - like "Davy the Fat Boy" or "Suzanne" or "God's Song" - I get the sense that he BELIEVES what he says, at least at the moment, and he's allowed himself to be taken over by the subject of the song, and that's not something I can say of someone like Zappa, who rarely (never? I couldn't say, as I can't make myself listen to all 654,000 of his albums to be sure) shows any sympathy or warmth for anything he ridicules. Newman is all about the contradictions, and I like that.

'Thanks for the compliment'

Just for that comment, he is now a hero of mine.

oh just fck off to the opera and leave pop alone.

magnusson would have known better !

new album out today, Harps and Angels to which I just started listening

the arrangement on the title track is just breathtaking, as is the vocal delivery

2nd song is a devastating/devastated lost-love ballad in the style of "Living Without You" and others in that unironic mode - it is brutal

awes. i've been curious, but on a budget :/

bad love was ok! (can not believe that was like 9 years ago)

oh cool I hadn't realized a new record was coming out. I've been listening through the box set with the kids a lot lately, and in particular the cd of film music has been hitting hard. Those arrangements! And these are more recent work than the usual classic stuff I focus on with Newman, so I'm totally open minded about new work with him.

I can't make it past this 2nd song. It is so incredible. I think you have to be old to dig it but I could be wrong.

the substitution chord he goes for at about 1:48 is just unspeakable cruelty

I met a bunch of guys I went to school with a few days ago and they're all massive Randy Newman fans. Thought it was kinda weird, I mean they're all like 20 but Randy Newman is the big thing.

Just sayin'

That's good news!

amazing lyric (especially considering that, as far as I know, RN & JB go to the same parties) in re: class disparity in the U.S.:

Jesus Christ it stinks here high and low
The rich are getting richer, I should know
While we're going up, you're going down
And no-one gives a shit but Jackson Browne

yeah this is a much more bitter & better album than Bad Love

i think i was around 19 or 20 when my boy j@s0n brought home 12 Songs & Good 'Ol Boys home from Davidson. Pretty much all we listened to that entire summer. well, that, Steely Dan, Some Girls & ATLiens.

lol old heads

oh man he reprises "Feels Like Home" from Faust (there sung by Bonnie Raitt), I mean this is one of the hardest most devastating songs

holy Christ

there's a live version (piano + vocals) on the box set (of "Feels Like Home"). Does the new version have a fuller arrangement? It's a powerful song, "I can almost see through the dark there's a light", *almost*.

it's arranged, yes. I mean, I love this song on Faust; it's like the crystallization of every song in its mode - Newman in his maturity has a subtlety that's almost invisible ("hope this feeling lasts/for the rest of my life" contains the seed of that hope's vanity & hopelessness). Here, it's pretty huge; he puts it at the end of the album, which I read as: "You may have missed this one. It's one of my good ones, have a look."

I really love Newman in his love-that-will-surely-kill-you mode, it wastes me.

John, you're selling this to me. Was thinking about getting this but the reviews I'd seen were a little sniffy. Is there anything as bleakly comic as 'The Great Nations of Europe' on it?

haha yes a couple of things. the main thing is, his structures are really complex now - they use to be more readily available, now they sound loose. They're not, actually, but they demand more scrutiny than a lot of stuff. Van Dyke Parks comes to mind - that kind of "so much going on it seems chaotic/unfocused."

But to me the album's about 3/4 "Great Nations" and 1/4 "Feels Like Home." I could go with all "Feels Like Home," 'cause I'm emo like that, but if irascible Randy is yr deal, well, how you not gonna like a song like "Korean Parents"?

John's doing a great job of selling this already but Losing You completely floors me. I interviewed him recently and he said he always prefers the bitter songs but he knows that most people will go for Losing You and Feels Like Home, just like they went for I Miss You or I Think It's Going to Rain Today, even though he thinks he sounds "mewly" when he sings ballads. I must say most people have a point - the older he gets, the more devastating the sad songs become. Potholes has a jollier arrangement but the lyrics are heartbreaking - the story about his shitty dad showing him up in front of his wife-to-be is true.

Jesus Christ it stinks here high and low
The rich are getting richer, I should know
While we're going up, you're going down
And no-one gives a shit but Jackson Browne

Damn, this is pretty good.

I got a chance to hear the first couple of songs on this today, and though I *really* want a new randy newman album to be good, they weren't knocking me out. part of it was that a lot of the music sounded familiar, which is always going to be a problem for someone who bases their harmonic ideas on music written 75-100 years ago -- but in this case, i actually thought they sounded mostly like other randy newman songs. i'll listen to the rest of the record today and hope for the best.

in fairness, I liked but didn't love Bad Love, and can barely stand to listen to Faust. I may be a randy newman rockist.

I love Faust unreservedly.

there was a fantastic tv special (only half an hour long !) on channel 4 on friday night. jon roson narrated, he's like an *insane* fan. there was this incredible edit where our man talked about how, as a youth, he'd wanted to relate to/be like springsteen but couldn't. was, he wondered aloud, there anyone out there who felt like him ; malevolent, sarchastic, jewish, etc etc.
very quickly an air-punching brooce clip ("baaaaawn in the usa ...i was...baaaaawn!!!...") cuts to newman tinkling live, 1st verse in on 'old kentucky home'("sister sue is short n stout, she never grew up, she grew out...") oh it was a fantastic shortcut thru the usual documentary waffle.

-- piscesboy, Monday, 24 November 2003 12:15 (4 years ago)

i dunno. u wait FIVE YEARS and then...

http://arts.wowtv.tv/episodes/the-art-show-i-am-unfortunately-randy-newman

(click download video if u get no instant access)

I'm going to get this tomorrow. Bad Love is great.

I was disappointed with Bad Love, but this new record is very entertaining. Nothing seems over arranged to me; everything is exactly where it should be. Some of the punchlines are spot on, and Potholes hits the nail on the head with alarming precision (as does A Few Words In Defence Of Our Country, obviously). I really don't need to hear Feels Like Home again (and if I did, it would be the Faust take), though I would sell my grandmother to hear Randy singing Toy Story 2's "When She Loved Me".

not entirely feeling this which is sad to me

i did really enjoy hearing the brushed drums come in behind randy at the beginning - seemed to signal something about the feel of the record i can't quite explain other than boringly musowise, viz.: the combo playing isn't as good as 12 songs and the arrangements aren't as great as '..creates something new' but the sum of the two seems to work better than anything else of his i've heard

& it's funny yes ("'he spoke french!'")

but doesn't seem to have enough convincing SMALL moments, the stuff that makes newman totally kill when on his game - dillingham above:

"But when Newman sings certain songs - like "Davy the Fat Boy" or "Suzanne" or "God's Song" - I get the sense that he BELIEVES what he says, at least at the moment, and he's allowed himself to be taken over by the subject of the song"

- there's these points where the way the treatment of the BIG thing in his best songs is subsumed into / refracted by the stuff going on with character and with performance, whereas in his not-best songs (e.g. 'short people') it just kind of remains totally external - which say 'a few words...' suffers from a lot, no matter how well it achieves its big thing. ('good old boys' is fantastic because after a while you feel like actually it's johnny cutler maintaining his ironic distance from randy newman.)

plus melodically it feels a little lazy - oh look, a blues bit you can't hum, a tin pan alley bit you can't hum, done with that now, back to "talk-singing" - i realised halfway through my first listen that it reminds me, worryingly, of william shatner's 'has been'

footnote: obviously that's not the only reason 'good old boys' is fantastic. there are others.

"Potholes" slays me — the part about the dad telling everyone about his son's failure on the diamond.
A lot of it is typical Newman, with the pretty New Orleans chords and lazy shuffle, but I suspect it's his best album since Good Old Boys.

I would sell my grandmother to hear Randy singing Toy Story 2's "When She Loved Me".
OTM. That song chokes me up every time I hear it, but I'd still rather hear Newman singing it.

Wait - it's on "The Randy Newman Songbook, Vol. 1." I'm assuming he sings it, since those are all remakes, right?

Damn, I checked. It's just a 1-minute musical interlude between songs.

Thanks for the link piscesx, worth watching just for the story about hitching a lift with the dockers.

And it's not what you think.

I like "Bad Love." Also, I got to see Newman months back, and it was one of the year's highlights for me.

J0hn, I would have bought the new one anyway (my broke ass is just waiting for a paycheck), but it's good to hear some enthusiasm about it. You're actually selling me on "Faust," which I'd avoided up until now...

I liked "Faust" way more than I initially thought, considering the guest artists listed in the liner notes. I mean, James Taylor made for a perfect con man/God/politician.

On Vine Street: The Early Songs of Randy Newman
Released April 1, 2008 (Ace Records UK)

1. The Biggest Night Of Her Life - HARPERS BIZARRE
2. Simon Smith And The Amazing Dancing Bear - THE ALAN PRICE SET
3. Mama Told Me Not To Come - ERIC BURDON & THE ANIMALS
4. Have You Seen My Baby - FATS DOMINO
5. Old Kentucky Home - THE BEAU BRUMMELS
6. So Long Dad - NILSSON
7. Love Story - RICK NELSON
8. Vine Street (Intro: Black Jack David) - VAN DYKE PARKS
9. I'll Be Home - LORRAINE ELLISON
10. I Think It's Going To Rain Today - DUSTY SPRINGFIELD
11. I Don't Want To Hear It Anymore - SCOTT WALKER (first issued as by The Walker Brothers)
12. I've Been Wrong Before - CILLA BLACK
13. Take Me Away - JACKIE DESHANNON
14. Happy New Year - BEVERLEY
15. Baby, Don't Look Down - BILLY STORM
16. Friday Night - THE O'JAYS
17. Big Brother - CALVIN GRAYSON
18. Nobody Needs Your Love - GENE PITNEY
19. Just One Smile - THE TOKENS
20. I Can't Remember Ever Loving You - TAMMY GRIMES
21. While The City Sleeps - IRMA THOMAS
22. Take Her - FRANKIE LAINE
23. Love Is Blind - ERMA FRANKLIN
24. Somebody's Waiting - GENE McDANIELS
25. Looking For Me - VIC DANA
26. They Tell Me It's Summer - THE FLEETWOODS

OK, is there really anything wrong with this new record?

That Dusty cover of I Think It's Going to Rain Today is pretty much the saddest record in the world - the strings are heartbreaking, let alone the voice.

Not arguing with that, but don't forget he also has two songs on Dusty in Memphis.

Thanks for the link piscesx, worth watching just for the story about hitching a lift with the dockers.

-- Billy Dods, Wednesday, 6 August 2008 22:10 (1 week ago)

haha yeah, painful.

it's all about dusty's version of I'VE BEEN WRONG BEFORE

they have cilla black doing it. cilla black is not a very good singer.

so randy has a new proper album out now as well.

heh... five years ago i write: " Someone should compile a collection of singles written by Randy and performed by others, from the days when he was a songwriter-for-hire à la Carole King."

i have "it's money that matters" running through my head. choice lines:

Of all of the people that I used to know
Most never adjusted to the great big world
I see them lurking in book stores
Working for the Public Radio
Carrying their babies around in
a sack on their back
Moving careful and slow

All of these people are much brighter than I
In any fair system they would flourish and thrive
But they barely survive
They eke out a living and they barely survive

the rest is sort of underwhelming, although this verse always gives me a laugh:

Then I talked to a man lived up on the county line
I was washing his car with a friend of mine
He was a little fat guy in a red jumpsuit
I said "You look kind of funny"
He said "I know I do, too"

We played his song "Sail Away" at our wedding, bcz it is so beautiful-sounding and we were pretty sure no-one knew it or knew what it was about. One of those minor injokes that add up to a lot of satisfaction in life.

Randy Newman is the best musician I've discovered in the past five years. Well, him and Roxy Music.

Sadly, I have to agree with Dominique. The memories aren't memorable. "Losing You" is almost as good as John D says, but I've heard this sort of thing from me before. "A Few Words in Defense Of Our Country" is obvious Michael Moore digs at front page headlines of the last eight years. I'm going to keep digging, though.

I'm talking about Harps and Angels, of course.

I've listened to the Harps and Angels version of "Feels Like Home" once a day for a week now: thanks J0hn for the tip! The accordion gets me every time, and I'm a sucker for anything this succinctly sentimental.

we've discussed this elsewhere, but i do not get the point of "sail away."

That Ace collection is missing one of Newman's more surreal tunes, the Everlys' version of "Illinois," off the Roots album. That song is so weird. The lyrics read like he like piece commissioned by the state's board of tourism.

we've discussed this elsewhere, but i do not get the point of "sail away."
What exactly don't you get? I must have missed this discussion.

Maybe he's wondering why RN doesn't take a stand against slavery?

He's become an American Institution.

OTM. I nominate him for Kennedy Center Honors.

we've discussed this elsewhere, but i do not get the point of "sail away."

It's your basic ironized pro-slavery song, where the slave trader is conning his victim with a sales pitch about the American dream, leaving you wondering how much of the con the slave trader believes, whether his standard for what it means to be a contented American is a promise or a threat, and whether his casual racism/imperialism/narcissism is still how America presents itself to the world.

Maybe he's wondering why RN doesn't take a stand against slavery?
Why should he? He's telling a story, not running for office.

I mean, should he take a stand against rape in "Suzanne?"

(I was being more than a little facetious w/ my question)

I getcha.
But dad a hits it on the head. That's a recurrent theme in Newman's work, right up to his latest album.

we've discussed this elsewhere, but i do not get the point of "sail away."

um, ok.

anyone still listening to 'harps and angels'?

Yup! It made my Top Fifteen.

I put it at the very top of my Pazz & Jop ballot. There are other albums I listen(ed) to more, but Harps and Angels is pretty perfect. I play it when I can really concentrate on it.

I'm listening to it a bunch lately, but I got it only recently.

this thread inspired me to play "easy street," which has very strong legs - the delivery is so amazing:

all your old friends, you know you love 'em so
it's gonna break your heart, but you're gonna have to let 'em go

Has everyone already heard this 1972 concert on Wolfgang's Vault? Loving it all, especially his left hand on My Old Kentucky Home. Stage patter as cutting as you'd expect, with a long jokey folksy intro (including a parody of an old seafaring song) that sets you up for the sudden change of gears when he hits you with Sail Away. I always thought Sail Away needed that bed of strings, like gloppy saccharin sweets to help you take your harsh medicine, but without them it's even more stark and punishing.

http://concerts.wolfgangsvault.com/dt/randy-newman-concert/20052964-5721.html

Added bonus: Lennon glasses (no lie).

I'm discovering this guy properly for the first time having really only known the hits and compilations and wow TROUBLE IN PARADISE really is something isn't it?

Is there a good book about the guy?

dunno about books, but the chapter on him in g marcus's mystery train is pretty good

i must check that out thanks. dunno why i never have before actually.

Check out Paul Zollo's book on songwriters... Good interview with Randy. Most interviews with Randy are usually pretty interesting and in good humor. I've never looked, but if somewhere someone's posted the notes he sent out with Bad Love they're worth a read. He did a track by track breakdown and they're as enjoyable as the tunes.

I don't know why this is, but I find I enjoy his later albums MORE than the established classics. I like 12 Songs, Sail Away and Good Old Boys, but I find myself playing Trouble In Paradise, Land of Dreams, Bad Love and Harps and Angels more. I guess part of this has to do with just not being as familiar with the later stuff so it sounds fresher. I've also found myself doing this with other acts like The Ramones and Rolling Stones. Instead of Rocket to Russia or Aftermath, I'm drawn to Pleasant Dreams and Undercover. Anyone else share this affliction? Is there a cure?

well, sure, i think there's something to be said for discovering an artist's later work -- people like Randy Newman never got really horrible or anything, I just think they got more predictable (not a bad thing!). they're kinda doing the same thing over and over, but maybe improving upon the original occasionally. this is maybe more true of filmmakers than musicians? not sure.

"Why must everybody laugh at my mighty sword?"

http://www.amazon.com/Bless-You-California-Various-Artists/dp/tracks/B0034800FA/

also, really enjoying bad love recently. "shame" is pretty goddam hilarious. "you know, i have a lexus now... i don't get out much... you know what i'm saying..."

ok i really like what newman does with the melody in "dixie flyer" (from LAND OF DREAMS). there's a few parts where you think he'd shift into the chorus or pre-chorus but he unexpectedly sticks a few extra lines in the verse.

it happens during my favorite part of the song: the lines "old mother came down to the station to meet us/dressed as black as a crow in a coal mine/she cried when the little girl got off the train/<AND THEN IT HAPPENS RIGHT HERE> brothers and sisters came down from jackson mississippi/a great green hudson driven by a gentile they knew..."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9jiLL2d-alc

such a beautiful song.

<sheds a lonely tear for randy newman>

fine, whatever. there's a moment on the bonus disc to the reissue of GOOD OLD BOYS, which comprises a series of demos cut for the album, where randy--who is recording in a studio with only an engineer as witness--starts explaining his rationale for the concept album and interjects, "wait, who the fuck am i talking to?"

ha, that bonus disc is gold.
soooo, are those "early Newman" comps worth getting?

you mean the collections of his early songs covered by other folks? YES, YES, 1000x YES. they are better than almost any of his LPs IMHO. and i LIKE his LPs.

yeah, that Vine Street comp and the one you linked to above ... I've heard a handful of things from each, but there are a ton I've never heard.

the fats domino track is fantastic.

why do we love this guy? randy newman you big so and so

I have listened to Beverley's "Happy New Year" about fifty times in the last day probably.

Randy Newman on the Oscars:

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/the_big_picture/2011/02/randy-newman-on-playing-at-the-oscars-toy-story-3-song.html

"It's a long show and it's hot in there and if you're playing, you're playing to a crowd where the majority of people haven't won anything, so they don't even want to be there. I mean, it's not, ahem, a great audience."

Classic for arranging "Is That All There Is?" along with his other accomplishments.

Really love the Nilsson sings Newman album. "Cowboy" is such a sad song and I'm not even really too sure what it's about.

I love all versions of that song

dude is about as classic as they come. a friend of mine made me a big compilation of people covering newman's songs from 1962-1971, kind of a fun alternate walk through the 1960s.

Classic for arranging "Is That All There Is?" along with his other accomplishments

I didn't know this and yet I did

recent Pitchfork piece on Best Coast made reference to the fact that when it comes to lyrics the singer is "not exactly the Randy Newman of beach-pop". struck me as odd because how many average Pitchfork reading Best Coast fans would even know who he is, but it's cool he's still getting referenced for his wordsmithery because really even now, who else *is* there that can compete?

Tyler- any chance of that compilation making the blog?

Classic for arranging "Is That All There Is?" along with his other accomplishments

I didn't know this and yet I did

ez - it's all official stuff, so probably not, but i can get it to ya privately in the next couple of days.

Thank you kind sir.

there's also this

yes! that's where a lot of it is drawn from, but my friend expanded it to three or so discs. really cool stuff.

"Ragtime" (1982) ... "My song was sung by John Schneider from "The Dukes of Hazzard," which I guess is what I mean when I say the whole experience is pretty strange."

lol, I remember a TV shot of Randy sinking into his seat.

john schneider can sing! same with tom wopat.

jesus christ why isn't there a video of this performance online! internet you disappoint me.

"Your son is home dad, and he's found a girl/and she's the greatest girl in all the world/I think you'll like her Dad, I hope you do/but if you don't that's alright too"

God I love the way he sings this line

Tom Wopat is a respected cabaret/Broadway-caliber singer. Schneider's singing was... colorless.

there's also this

which was itself followed up by this

Randy Newman, C/D? Are you kidding me? He's at the pinnacle of the songwriter heap and I have to listen to Sail Away at least once a month. I love the way he plays the piano too.

those Ace songwriter comps are cool, i need to get the goffin/king volumes!
http://www.amazon.com/Goffin-King-Carole-Collection-1961-1967/dp/B000UX43Y6/ref=pd_bxgy_m_img_b

might be UK only this but BBCs new online archive throws up this:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/features/desert-island-discs/castaway/328c86db#b00dybps

That Desert Island Discs site is awesome!

Warren Mitchell, 13/11/67
3. Karlheinz Stockhausen - Kontrapunkte

Harrison Birtwistle, 16/1/94
7. Frankie Valli & the Four Seasons - Sherry

etc etc etc etc

How did I not know that Vol. 2 of the Songbook comes out next week? I loved the first one to bits.

Jesus.

I was at an engagement party tonight, and all of the semi-professional musicians (me too) were bashful about singing songs, because we couldn't think of unabashedly appropriate songs to sing, and then the housewife who no one knew could sing got up and sang this, and it was fucking amazing.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HkLE33XCZ_0

:.)

awesome.

:)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=imECa3rx8fQ

listening to "Nilsson Sings Newman" for the first time

wtf is this "Yellow Man" bullshit. can anyone defend these lyrics? This is like "Kung Fu Fighting" level idiocy.

Yeah, and short people have no reason to live, either.

i think it's supposed to be sung from the point of view of a dude who has no idea what he is talking about.

^^^weak sauce

Very far away in a foreign land
Live the yellow woman and the yellow man
He's been around for many a year
They say they were there before we were here
Eatin' rice all day
While the children play You see he believes in the family
Just like you and me
Oh, yellow man, oh, yellow man
We understand, you know we understand
He keeps his money tight in his hand
With his yellow woman he's a yellow man
Got to have a yellow woman
When you're a yellow man

I assume this is satire but it's like z-grade satire imho

i can't believe that 'sail away' shit, slavery is clearly evil

that is a different, much better song

shakey, don't you think the target of the song is idiotic notions of other cultures? i always laugh at the "Got to have a yellow woman/When you're a yellow man" because it's just like the emptiest phrase, like the singer saying, ummm i do not know anything about the yellow man.

yellow man is a dumb song but I lol @ it

I lol @ exactly what tyler posted

[btw, i won't defend yellow man as a particularly great song, it's extremely minor Newman]

btw what do you think of nil sings new, it is one of those albums that's so fucking incredible that I hated it for a while but when I came around to it it can't be fucked w/, it's one of those kinds of albums

that may be the target but I don't like the presentation, which Newman is delivering from a position of power - it's hard for me to shake the impression that he is playing with offensive terms because, as a white guy, he can, as long as he injects it with a suitable level of irony (not sure suitable levels are achieved here, song seems very lazy to me)

I dunno I found this really jarring on the Nilsson record, it bugs me.

xp

it is the worst song on the album yea

shakey have you heard his new song "korean parents"

well, like, relatively new

haw, i was going to mention korean parents.
nillsson sings newman is a fucking masterpiece. like unbelievably good.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SK-p3mtyhRc

I think you need to listen to a lot more Randy Newman; the song's lyrics make a perfect kind of cosmic sense in the light of a crucial part of his persona - much of what Newman does is meta-commentary on other things, and far more complex than the superficiality of the lyrics might make you think. The song might not as much direct sense now as it did at the time - society has become a little more adept at toning down the abrasive stupidity at racist portrayals. But if you look at the lyrics of Bobby Goldsboro's "Me, Japanese Boy" - which came out just a few years before "Yellow Man" - which gave no hint, (either internally or via the context Goldsboro's persona or other material) of being satiric or ironic - "Yellow Man" makes more sense. It's an extreme minimalist version of "Me, Japanese Boy" - making something that was already really dumb . . . dumb enough that maybe people would finally see it for its stupidity.

Tyler's right on the money. And:

that may be the target but I don't like the presentation, which Newman is delivering from a position of power - it's hard for me to shake the impression that he is playing with offensive terms because, as a white guy, he can, as long as he injects it with a suitable level of irony (not sure suitable levels are achieved here, song seems very lazy to me)

The "power" struggle in "Yellow Man" is really between Randy Newman and racist (white, American) assumptions. And guess who had / has the upper hand? Hint: It's not Newman in a position of power.

lol no I had never heard Korean Parents before now

not sure what to make of it, as I wasn't really aware of Korean parents having a stereotype for being particularly disciplinary or whatever. so whatever stereotype he's trying to skewer there just doesn't register with me

xp

See, those Japanese are almost like us, they experience a human-like love and everything!

ME, JAPANESE BOY

Long, long ago in a land far away
A little boy and a girl were so in love
Standing neath the moon above

He said, "Me Japanese Boy, I love you, I do love you
You Japanese Girl, you love me, please say you do"

They carved their names on an cherry tree
Just like they've done in Japan since time began
Then he gently held her hand

And said, "Me Japaneses Boy, I love you, I do love you
You Japaneses Girl, you love me, please say you do"

In a blue and white kimono
She became his happy bride
From that day until this very moment
She'd been standing by his side

Now they are old and from what I am told
They're still in love just as much as they once were
Every night he kissed her

And said, "Me Japanese Boy, I love you, I do love you"

There is the way that it should be when love is true
There is the way that it should be for me and you

The "power" struggle in "Yellow Man" is really between Randy Newman and racist (white, American) assumptions.

the convenient exclusion of a certain subject here is really lolworthy

ie, don't worry about what any yellow people might think, THEY DON'T MATTER ANYWAY

actually shakey is right, this is a pretty dismal song and almost nothing about it apart from it being sung by randy newman even indicates that it's not just unironic racism (which can't be said for 'sail away,' 'rednecks,' etc). i do love the line 'they say they were there before we were here,' which has kind of a wonderful laconic pointlessness.

yeah not a single line here contains a twist or any kind of reflective "DO YOU SEE" implication - the text in and of itself is just racist bullshit.

dunno, what's the DO YOU SEE moment in Sail Away? is there a backup singer cooing "slavery is bad" that i missed somewhere?

me and a friend did a cover of yellow man when we were stoned and I listened to it a week later and we had like 10 vocal tracks recorded on top of one another and all of them had really heavy reverb or w/e and I was like what the hell were we thinking

but then his gf came over and was like ew you both sound white that was our real do you see moment but I dont know

"Sail Away" is told from the rather clearly spelled out POV of a slave trader (Charleston Bay ref etc), which implies that much of the rest of the lyrics are outright lies. "Yellow Man" contains no such tell-tale detail regarding the narrator.

xp

my friend is korean I guess I forgot that w/e

presumably strict "Korean Parents" must've dropped the ball with him I guess

xp maybe you're right, maybe the reason i've never thought yellow man is racist/offensive is because i know that newman is the guy who wrote sail away and rednecks and is working through some of the same issues. if you removed all context from the song, i don't know what i'd think of it. but has anyone else covered it other than nillsson (on an album called ...sings Newman)?

yeah not a single line here contains a twist or any kind of reflective "DO YOU SEE" implication

this is like, you know how some people see a certain kind of reflection on a song and go 'fucking lit majors'? this is the opposite of that

did you major in namecalling cuz I'm guessing you didn't major in textual analysis

"Yellow Man" contains no such tell-tale detail regarding the narrator.

Who cares? The context of the culture at the time, as well as the rest of the artist's work is all one needs. What you're saying is rather like claiming Jackson Pollock just dripped a lot of paint or Picasso couldn't draw the human form very well. Why should art be spelled out so explicitly? Artists like Harry Nilsson and Ella Fitzgerald understood the song perfectly well!

As far as "Sail Away," it's brilliance isn't that it's a bullshit "sales pitch" made by a liar (though it partially is) - that's taking the narrator thing too seriously and missing other points of the song. Sam Moore (I think it was) of Sam & Dave said that he liked the song because, despite the individual horrors of slavery, life on the whole may have actually been (or turned out) better for those brought over as slaves (or their descendants) than those who remained in Africa. I'd feel uncomfortable making that arguing from my white guy position of power (so to speak), but there you have it. Somewhere on the web there's an analysis of the song's *many* possibilities by Greil Marcus. One of the sub-points in (3) align with Sam Moore's. While "Sail Away" is a better song than "Yellow Man", one could probably come up with multiple interpretations of that song too. But I don't get paid to analyze rock music like Marcus, so you can just take a gander at this instead:

“Sail Away” has already been well appreciated for its complexity of sense, but I don’t know that anyone has been geeky enough to actually list the various senses the song puts into play. To me this seems worth doing in support of a general claim I want to make—against all the wrongheaded prosaic literalists of the world—that piling on possible senses is very natural to us. We get a kick out of it. (Whether I’m being a literalist at another level by specifying the multiple senses is a problem I won’t bother my head about. So here goes:

1. We understand that as the slaver promises Africans they will find happiness in America, he may be gung-ho enough to believe the promise; or

1A. He may believe the promise in a depraved, self-deluding way; or

1B. He doesn’t believe the promise and is simply manipulative.

2. The slaver contradicts himself. “Take care of his home and his family” is a wholly different scenario than being “as happy as a monkey in a monkey tree,” which points up the cruel bind slaves are placed in—denied almost all opportunities to live responsibly but allowed only a miserable version of animal-level happiness.

2A-B (see the options under sense 1): The slaver either realizes this contradiction or doesn’t.

3. In any case, we understand that the slaver’s picture of the American experience is not true (dramatic irony).

3A. Though the slaver’s promise is not truthful about shorter-term outcomes for slaves, the longer-term outcomes could be as promised—“America” might work out great for everyone (further irony added to sense 3).

3AA-B. The slaver does or doesn’t have the foresight to think this, or the will to hope this.

4. Randy Newman, as opposed to the slaver character, is unconsciously channeling the history that came out of American slavery and into American popular music.

4A. Newman is presenting his historical position consciously, inviting us to contemplate the irony of a white singer-songwriter summing up the experience of blacks.

5. Charleston Bay is a beautiful destination.

5A. Charleston Bay is the American equivalent of the Auschwitz train station.

6. “Sail Away” is a viable national anthem—it beautifully brings to a focus our most important national experience, including our strongest regrets and hopes.

6A. “Sail Away” is purely satirical—its value is just that of, say, a Tom Lehrer song.

6B. “Sail Away” is a horror song.

6BA. “Sail Away” is vile exploitation of historical horror.

Let’s look now at the tangle of sense in the greatest line itself, the final line. It starts with “y’all,” which poses a linguistic problem, a cultural problem, and an ethical problem. We have to solve all three problems if we’re to finish processing the senses of the song.

As a linguistic problem, even before we construe the sense of the word we have to decide whether we’re hearing Newman say “y’all” (yawl) or the two words “you’re all” partially slurred together. What rides on this is whether we hear him as a specimen of dialect or as a strategic user of a dialect expression. In the recording and in every performance I’ve heard, he hits the exact midpoint between these articulations; this makes him both a Southerner, a creature of slave society whose sense of what is real and possible is already drastically skewed, and a designer who chose slavery as a means to fulfilling the utopian ideal of “America.” That’s the cultural problem. But even the smart “America” engineer, if it’s him we’re hearing, has to talk in the distinctive language of the South to the extent of using that cozening, coercive second-person plural for the second-person individual. Through this lens we look back on the preceding line, “You’ll be as happy as a monkey in a monkey tree,” and realize we could take it as evidence either that the “America” engineer has cleverly geared his appeal to Africans or that the Southerner is already afflicted with racist stupidity. And the cultural problem is totally an ethical problem: how are we to relate to this guy? Should we be afraid of him? Should we stamp him out? Should we pity him?

In 2012, in the hot afternoon of the American Empire, we must hear the offer, or threat, “Y’all gonna be an American,” in its brutality and supreme optimism as applying to Iraqis and Afghans and just about everyone in the world, in principle, except maybe for 11 million Latinos who work inside the United States. Thus:

7. “Y’all gonna be an American!” We mean it!

7A. “Y’all gonna be an American!” We wish we could say it! But we realize we can’t.

7B. “Y’all gonna be an American!” It’s a ridiculous thought, and we renounce it.

I’m claiming we love to pile on extra layers of sense in our expressions, but I must admit it’s equally characteristic of us to boil sense down to a simple takeaway, especially when we can use it as a weapon or an Open Sesame. The possibility of oversimplification is especially worrying in the present context. What if I go forth beaming upon the peoples of the world my new all-purpose conviction, “Y’all gonna be an American” (sense 7)? Randy Newman’s song is so outrageous that this can’t happen. Surely.

guys guys come on now we're all english majors here. with a minor in being chill.

is the marcus thing an expansion of the thing in one of his first books?

in which -- lit major alert!! -- he compares the narrator to melville's Confidence Man

Tyler, lots of people have covered it. Ella Fitzgerald (as mention) did a studio version I haven't heard, but I did hear a live version that was not only fabulous, but also (somehow) conveys the sense of absurdity of racist images (expressed in something like "Me, Japanese Boy.)

I like Mo's opinions a lot, but I think they're wrong here. For me, it's the simple matter of agreeing with Newman, Nilsson and Fitzgerald - three of America's greatest 20th century musical talents.

Fuck me, that appears to be not by Greil Marcus, but by Steve Smith. My apologies:

http://hooksanalysis.wordpress.com/2012/04/06/the-greatest-line-randy-newman-sail-away-1972/

I already said Sail Away was a better song, one with subtleties and nuances not found in Yellow Man, which is simply clumsy.

A work requiring a lot of external cultural context - particularly the kind which cannot be extrapolated from the work itself and is not referenced in the work itself - to be appreciated is a bad piece of work.

xp

might be worth noting that on 12 songs it immediately follows the 1932 'underneath the harlem moon':

Creole babies walk along with rhythm in their thighs,
Rhythm in their feet and in their lips and in their eyes.
Where do high-browns find the kind of love that satisfies?
Underneath the Harlem moon.

There's no fields of cotton, pickin' cotton is taboo;
They don't live in cabins like old folks used to do:
Their cabin is a penthouse up on Lenox Avenue,
Underneath the Harlem moon.

They just live on dancing,
They're never blue or forlorn.
'Tain't no sin to laugh and grin,
That's why darkies were born.

They shout “Hallelujah!” ev'ry time they're feeling low,
Ev'ry sheik is dressed up like a jawja gigolo;
You may call it madness but they call it "hi de ho,"
Underneath the Harlem moon.

A work requiring a lot of external cultural context - particularly the kind which cannot be extrapolated from the work itself and is not referenced in the work itself - to be appreciated is a bad piece of work.

what is this i don't even

I mean Pollock and Picasso - these things function on a visceral level (color! shapes! everyone understands these things to varying degrees) outside of their cultural contexts.

xp

shakey you should probably assume, given that Newman is always completely bullseye when his subject is race relations, that you are missing the point. how often is Newman not singing through a personified narrator? how reliably is it the case that if he's saying something stupid, you're to understand that he is singing through the voice of a person he considers stupid, usually to mock that person? it's so clear in "Yellow Man" that it's just weird that you don't get. "Yellow man, oh yellow man/We understand, you know we understand" - you actually hear that as Randy Newman singing in earnest? He's making fun of condescending exoticism by embodying it at a very reductive level.

now what follows 'yellow man' is 'my old kentucky home', shakey i recommend that one to you, it very clearly positions itself so you realise the narrator is dislikable, there is v little room for ambiguity

(there's also something going on in that little triptych vis-a-vis the flatness, clumsiness of yellow man's couplets set against the trick rhymes in 'harlem moon'; his performance of that song has more to it than 'hey, check out how racist this old song is'; but argh it's friday night)

"Yellow Man", lyrically and musically, does not really contain any references or contextual clues beyond it's baldfaced racism. that is all that is there, a bunch of stereotypical, crude descriptions of Asian people. It doesn't situate these lines within a broader context the way the lyrics of "Sail Away" explicitly do. If the insistence is that one has to know Randy Newman's catalog and a bunch of biographical details about Randy Newman and the time and place in which he wrote the song in order to appreciate it - well, those are the marks of a shitty song. Good songs do not require such externalities in order to work.

xp

you don't really need any externalities to hear that the narrator of "Yellow Man" is a moron

you actually hear that as Randy Newman singing in earnest?

where did I suggest this?

He's making fun of condescending exoticism by embodying it at a very reductive level.

and he's doing it in a terrible way - the simple hamfisted replication of racist language - which is his exclusive privelege as a white guy

sad you guys are defending this. this is like "white guy proves how bad blackface is by performing in blackface" level clumsiness imo.

hang on, still trying to make an 'externalities' gag

you don't really need any externalities to hear that the narrator of "Yellow Man" is a moron

if the listener themselves are racist morons, there's nothing in the song to make them uncomfortable with their moronity, which is a problem imho

where did I suggest this?

you didn't suggest it, you said it outright:

wtf is this "Yellow Man" bullshit. can anyone defend these lyrics? This is like "Kung Fu Fighting" level idiocy.

something about disease amongst chinese coal miners just to bring it full circle. also, 30 rock did a bit with jon hamm in blackface a few months ago, it was pretty funny.

A work requiring a lot of external cultural context - particularly the kind which cannot be extrapolated from the work itself and is not referenced in the work itself - to be appreciated is a bad piece of work.

That's just silly. The vast majority of art - particularly in visual and musical forms - is understood largely through context, not explicative narration. Context motivates most art. If you think of the dadaists or impressionists or beatniks or punks or (whatever), context was almost everything. The reason that most of the important movements in art, music, literature (etc) take a while to catch on is because most people aren't very adept at contextualization and generally need to wait until they've been inundated with context before they can even attempt to make a judgment about it or appropriate it. That's why the Swell Maps sold essentially no records in America, but now have their music used in Big Three car commercials on television. Or how, when people dress up for era-themed parties (50's, 60's, 70's, whatever), they all end up wesaring clothes that 99% of the population would never have gone near. (Look at a yearbook from a San Francisco high school in 1968, and you'll be disturbed how many people look like Donna Reed and Pat Boone . . . not Jerry Garcia and Janis Joplin.)

Part of the brilliance of Randy Newman is that the meaning of even some of his slighter songs (including his biggest hit, "Short People") are misunderstood / comprehended in perplexing proportion.

Mo, your initial understanding - posted here - wasn't "This isn't a particularly good song. It's clumsy and subpar." it was:

wtf is this "Yellow Man" bullshit. can anyone defend these lyrics? This is like "Kung Fu Fighting" level idiocy.

I can respect anyone not liking the song. But you still missed the point. Don't blame the narrator; a lot of people got it. Including Harry and Ella and me.

[i]you didn't suggest it, you said it outright:[/]

lol waht

BANJO!

my initial post doesn't say anything about the narrator! you guys are trying to hang some weird, much easier-to-dismiss position on me.

that Hamm thing was really touchy, if Tracy Jordan hadn't been in that scene it would not have worked at all

I'm not going to argue w/you about it though you don't get it & you're in Shakey Is Angry mode you're not going to hear anything & you'll come up with all kinds of nonsense to defend your position. The song is clearly satire. What's making you uncomfortable in it is that the ugliness of petty exoticization is so clear in this song that it's painful to hear. generally speaking, exoticization isn't what a satirist targets - it's something huge like slavery, where you can't miss the point. the target here is the small daily racism of white hegemony. it is successfully and clearly embodied and is horrible to hear. the idea that as a satirist Newman has to wink at you or he's failed is an idea you can really only hold if satire isn't yr deal.

if Randy Newman had sang Kung Fu Fighting would you guys be defending it as satire?

(also the comparison to blackface is offensive tbh and I would earnestly ask you to retract it? the mask Newman's wearing is that of a white racist. that does not, in any way, compare to blackface.)

lol Shakey you are actually criticizing Randy Newman for getting his tone too perfect

personally i think ppl itt should retract their harmful, reductive views of blackface

like I get that you guys want to defend this song because it's all butthurt Randy Newman fans time but this song is lacking in its construction. Not everything the guy wrote was a tour de force satire of race relations. It's simple and crude and entirely indistinguishable from genuine racism.

xp

if Randy Newman had sang Kung Fu Fighting would you guys be defending it as satire?

congratulations on posing a genuinely meaningless question - hard to pull off!

a lot of this argument basically comes down to 'we know this is not racist because randy newman wrote it,' which i am really not comfortable with. i don't doubt that newman set out to write a satire of exoticism but the actual song he produced is underwritten and completely lacking in nuance.

songs are pretty similar imho

except one is funky I guess

xp

if the listener themselves are racist morons, there's nothing in the song to make them uncomfortable with their moronity, which is a problem imho

Morons are going to be morons. And why is it Randy Newman's task to ensure all listeners are educated? He's not Joan fucking Baez!

What you're saying isn't any different from saying that the Ramones should be condemned because the narrator never makes it explicit that sniffing glue and beating on brats is wrong. Nor does it make them "uncomfortable with their moronity" - I don't see much difference here, really. (And I could make the point for hundreds of artists who *also* rely on external context for the listener to "get" their songs.)

You don't like the song - which is fine - but you don't seem to acknowledge that some people did get it right away.

It's simple and crude and entirely indistinguishable from genuine racism.

it's simple & crude & Shakey Mo is incapable of distinguishing it from genuine racism, is a true statement.

"They say they were there before we were here" - if you don't hear the author behind the narrator there, you are a very lazy reader

"You see, he believes in the family, just like you and me" - ditto

"we understand, you know we understand" - ditto

"got to have a yellow woman when you're a yellow man" - the most hideous line in the song, anyone who doesn't cringe isn't listening or is racist. which is the point of the line.

YouTube commenter claims that this song is used to advertise the Simpsons in Sweden

context is extra tricky when you're dealing with a) racism and b) from a position of entitled power, especially so in the case of the latter. If you hand me two bucktoothed, slant-eyed, yellow-skinned caricatures of Chinese people, which are indistinguishable from each other in form and content, and tell you one is racist and one is not... um

xp

tell ME one is

argh

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v18/Estimatedprophet/KellyNewDawn_jpg.jpg

they are distinguishable by most readers. you can't make the distinction. you're also not listening to anybody's explanation, but gainsaying it immediately. there is no point. cling to your wrong opinion, you aren't interested in actually understanding the song.

lol for a LONG time I was like "I do not fucking get it" with those Onion cartoons

If you hand me two bucktoothed, slant-eyed, yellow-skinned caricatures of Chinese people,

except you're not being handed a caricature of Chinese people

you're being handed a caricature of a narrator

you don't understand that, you think the narrator has to say I AM A NARRATOR or it's racism, but that's just your own weird trip

aero I appreciate you goin in on the line readings but yeah I think those lines are pretty weak as signifiers of greater depth - Newman works this angle better elsewhere, it's like his approach is insufficiently developed here. the patronizing undertone in the lines you cite isn't overt enough imho, they're too close to actual patronizing racist lines.

xp

I'm not claiming it's his masterpiece, it's an early song - B effort from him at best. But that it's clearly, obviously, to almost anyone, a caricature of a stance - that is obvious. Without extratextual clues.

you think the narrator has to say I AM A NARRATOR or it's racism

that's ... sort of true. racism is tricky like that.

and again, retract the blackface claim - he's not saying "We are Siamese." The narrator is white, speaking about an Other, not through an Other's voice. You are wrong to compare that to blackface.

xp lol you really severely do not get it

if Randy Newman had sang Kung Fu Fighting would you guys be defending it as satire?

"Kung Fu Fighting" is not reductionist and does not refer or act as meta-commentary on anything from around the same time in the same way "Yellow Man" does, so it's a dumb question. Essentially, Randy Newman never would have written it - it's not like anything he's ever done. "Kung Fu Fighting" was a hit because it played upon the early to mid-70s craze for kung fu movies in urban black neighborhoods. Plus it was sing-songy and catchy as hell - great performance and a good groove, with a fab hook. Carl Douglas (performer of "Kung Fu Fighting") was not, nor has ever been, known for anything else much, and he certainly had no persona that would have provided the context necessary to see it any other way.

Mo, I've got to be believe that if you were much of a Randy Newman fan you would have heard this song long ago. Randy Newman's never been the big seller that one might expect from his acclaim and long career, in part that's because context is generally needed to see all the facets of his work. It's a bit like "Seinfeld" - low ratings at first, because taken on their own (that is to say, without knowing the characters and actors and without having seen other episodes), "Seinfeld" does not seem very funny. It's only when the viewer - through repetition and variations of themes - understands the patterns that the show comes alive. (If you like it, that is!) So I think if you spent more time with Newman and don't hold onto this grudge, the song will began to appeal in a different way. It's worth it, in my opinion.

Steven Fucking Tyler's last few comments take a different tack, but get it exactly right, Mo. I don't think you're trying, you're avoiding reasonable explanations and making silly and inaccurate comparisons (re: the Chinese caricatures and "Kung Fu Fighting") and not really understanding the implicit idea that there is a narrator there . . . just like there is in nearly every other song.

"Kung Fu Fighting" does not refer or act as meta-commentary on anything from around the same time

hahaha this is a joke right

that's ... sort of true. racism is tricky like that.

Again, to you. "Yellow Man" was on the first Randy Newman album I ever had, and I didn't know a thing about him at all. I still got it. Deeper knowledge and further listenings through the years certainly *add* context. But while racism might be "tricky" for you, it doesn't appear to be as tricky for some of the rest of us.

The narrator is white, speaking about an Other, not through an Other's voice.

wait isn't the Other in this case the racist lol

my only point about the blackface thing was that it's dangerous for white people to attempt to appropriate racist imagery with the intention of showing how racist it is. if it isn't done deftly and with a lot of care, it risks just being another reproduction of racist imagery. which is essentially what happened in Yellow Man.

also I hate Seinfeld fwiw

Shakey, I bear you no ill will so I'm going to try again. Literally every line of "Yellow Man" is a clichéd white description of the exoticized other. Kung Fu Fighting, on the other hand, is actually trying to describe then-trendy kung fu movies, and while the language is indeed racist, it's not textbook you've-actually-heard-people-say-this racism like "very far away in a foreign land live a yellow woman and the yellow man." note that this first line situates our narrator and goes out of its way to use the definite article "the" to point out to you, the gentle reader, that an entire race is being reduced to a single person. "Kung Fu Fighting" does not, in fact, have any similar authorial signposts. I consider this explanation pretty clear, but I will also bet five dollars that your opinion is "no way, they're exactly the same."

it's not textbook you've-actually-heard-people-say-this racism

apart from the generic term "Chinaman" ... but in the interest of earning $5 I will concede this is a good point

gotta go now btw

thx for the insights (honest)

i think marcus says something in 'mystery train' about how newman was reluctant to play this song live. kinda understandable, tho it doesn't necessarily reflect on the song's meaning -- i think 'rednecks' is one of the all-time triumphs of newman's songwriting and a total masterpiece in every way, but i'm not putting it on any party playlists.

if you're still in SF I will straight give you five bones next time I'm out there, a bet's a bet!!

Hating "Seinfeld" should not obliterate an understanding of how it works best with external context. I don't like it much either. So what's your point?

I don't even think "Kung Fu Fighting" is racist, to be honest. In fact, the only thing I think anyone could take any offense at is the term "Chinaman," which wasn't intended to cause offense . . . just a little dated (though less so in 1974) and insensitive. But other than that, the song was simply a celebration of kung fu movies . . . and not, as people like to read it, meta-commentary on Chinese people. Unless you're an idiot. But why should art be dumbed down so that idiots don't misunderstand it? (I'm not referring to you, Mo.)

wish there were a randy newman song sung from the POV of someone who doesn't like seinfeld.

Now I can't get the image of Shakey (whom I've never met, so can't actually imagine) making a pinched Seinfeld face and saying, "Newman," through clenched teeth.

they say that it's funny
yes, that's what they say
so i sit down and i watch it
day after day...

me and a friend did a cover of yellow man when we were stoned and I listened to it a week later and we had like 10 vocal tracks recorded on top of one another and all of them had really heavy reverb or w/e and I was like what the hell were we thinking

― puff puff post (uh oh I'm having a fantasy), Friday, August 10, 2012 10:37 PM (Yesterday)

hahahaha this is fantastic

I only heard the song "Yellow Man" of Harry Nilsson's NILSSON SINGS NEWMAN, which as mentioned is so shickoingly gorgeous I think I can be excused for never paying attention to the words and somehow thinking it was a moving ode to a full mooon

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y9sJEXhCDc8

you are actually criticizing Randy Newman for getting his tone too perfect

btw I think this is essentially true fwiw and is probably the most illuminating thing I took away from this. to be fair, it doesn't really make me like the song any more - some imperfections in the tone or more overt peek-behind-the-curtains sort of lines would have improved it imho

don't feel bad Shakes, a lot of people out there think that Newman really does love L.A., you even hear the song at Clippers games IIRC

well that's the thing about "i love l.a." of course randy loves the city. it's where he's lived most of his life, and where he has chosen to stay. and of course he sees a lot here to make fun of. his genuine affection for the city he's making fun of is a big part of the soul of that song. (and he's really making gentle fun, at best.)

Shakey being a hueg Tarantino fan adds to the comedy here.

Randy could live anywhere but lives near Hollywood, doesn't he? He does love LA.

oh, xp

exactly, you just can't take it at face value (I guess it's a bad comp because I Love L.A. has at least SOME truth to it, but c'mon, this is Randy Newman)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cvLeQbwuKys

At last we get to see the comments Rednecks and Short People would have provoked if YouTube had existed in the 70s. The Toy Story guy is racist WTF???

ugh

Flooding ALL & ONLY White countries with non-Whites and telling everyone to "assimilate" to create a "brown future" is White genocide.

Africa will still be full of Africans.

Asia will still be full of Asians.

Only White children will suffer from this.

Read the UN genocide conventions: It is genocide plain and simple!

Anti-racist is a codeword for anti-White.

Kevin Culver 13 minutes ago

dorian that's your fault i read that

Oh is that the one at the top now? Sorry.

HOW ABOUT IM DREAMING OF FALSE JEW KHAZAR *SYNAGOGUEOF SATAN (REVELATION 2:9) . HAHA :)`
666ASTANA 4 hours ago

"Political Science" is CLASSIC. I'd never listened to Randy Newman but the local record store had "Sail Away" and "Good Old Boys" for a dollar each and i have been rocking them for the past week or so. Great stuff, so effing sarcastic.

Gotta say the first song I listened to was "Rednecks" and I was LOLling the entire time.

"college boys from LSU/went in dumb/came out dumb too"

Don't know our ass from a hole in the ground

GOB and SA are on endless repeat at my house this fall. I don't think I've heard a classic record like these that contained so many beautiful songs in a long time.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kBux4AlGQzM

I mean sweet Jesus, this is some beautiful music.

I've seem him live a few times, and each time I've been amazed by his remarkable economy. For all the words in his songs, there often really aren't that many words. He just makes them all count. "Sail Away," for example, is just three brief verses, and a couple of simple choruses, but the song conveys so much.

sail away's practically an epic!!

Josh otm. He's really the anti-Elvis Costello.

I love how he says "I've been his friend since we were little babies" in "Davy the Fat Boy".

I went back to that record store (Full Moon Records in Atlanta) and found "Live" and it's pretty damn awesome. Also they had "All Things Must Pass" 3xLP set in very good condition also for $1!

I love the link he plays in rock history, too. His uncles were all film composers, as are a couple of cousins. Meanwhile, his best bud growing up was Lenny Waronker (they took piano lessons together) whose father Simon (after writing music in Hollywood) founded Liberty records, who made its fortune off Ross Bagdasarian, aka David Saville, who did the Chipmunks (Simon Waronker was where "Simon" came from). Simon parlayed that success into stuff like Jan & Dean. But thanks to Lenny, Liberty/Simon hired Randy Newman as a songwriter when he was still a teen. Eventually Lenny goes to Warner Bros. and brings along Randy and Van Dyke Parks. Etc.

'davy the fat boy' is blood-chilling, espec: 'YOU'VE GOT TO LET THIS FAT BOY IN YOUR LIFE!'

just reviving to say that Spotify now has what appears to be a very comprehensive Randy back catalogue on there. there used to be gaps and many of the albums missing but now it's the full thwack; live albums, soundtracks, the whole bit. at least in the UK.

Thanks.

Also, Billboard keynote http://www.billboard.com/biz/articles/news/record-labels/5770720/randy-newman-talks-film-scoring-new-studio-album-kanye-wests

Have to admit I only ever really listened to the obvious albums: Sail Away, Gold Old Boys and Twelve Songs. Where should I go next?

that url is a little misleading

harps and angels
xpost

thx

So far so good. Maybe on to the s/t debut next.

Little Criminals is the other classic i guess. also Land Of Dreams and Trouble In Paradise are great and under rated too!

Randy must have been the first rock musician I ever knowingly heard, though not cognizant at the time of his respectable back catalogue. Watching Toy Story in 1995 as a little kid, sick with fever, hearing him sing "and I will go sailing.....noooooo more..." is one of those kiddie memories that has a little but secure place in my heart. It became even more special when I grew up and became a big fan of his 70s work. Sail Away is an album I never get sick of listening to, and Good Ol' Boys isn't far behind.

Is anything worth getting after the 70s? I've not investigated those yet.

i want to know more about your youth. were you prohibited from listening to rock and/or roll?

Not really, but at five/six, I hadn't got around to checking out zappa/vu/beefheart/can, et al.

well sure but

when were you born

nineteen-ninety.

damn son

there are rock singers who are not as obscure as beefheart and lou reed,
sometimes you hear them on the radio

no kidding.

we didn't play the radio in my house.

to say randy newman was the very first one may not be true. but it's a first memory which i subsequently came to know as the author of "rednecks" and "god's song".

there were other extenuating circumstances which meant that music was not played much in our house. mostly revolving around my mother suffering extensively from mental illness during my childhood, other interests at the time, etc.

in any case, that's irrelevant. anyone know if newman is any good after the 70s?

There are more than a few glimmers of acid brilliance here and there, and some lovely ballads, but a lot of his later albums are actually only good enough. Which ain't bad!

Believe it or not, his songbooks, which feature songs already released performed by just him on piano, are really good. The version of "Lonely At the Top" might actually be even better than the original Sail Away version.

why is Little Criminals held up as a bad Randy Newman album when the second half (start with "In Germany Before the War" + the second side) is so good? I think it's almost as good a second half as Sail Away.

"I'll Be Home" sounds a lot different in sequence here than it does on Nilsson Sings Newman ( and it's not just Newman's voice compared to Nilsson).

the title track is great, I love the way that it manages to mock these people's delusions but still have that excitement + buoyancy be infectious

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/arts-and-entertainment/wp/2016/10/10/exclusive-listen-to-randy-newmans-first-new-song-in-four-years-its-about-bare-chested-vladimir-putin-really/

song is hilarious

Kinda formulaic Newman musically though

http://www.npr.org/2017/07/27/537309087/first-listen-randy-newman-dark-matter

this record is so good

this record Randy Newman is so good.

i kinda go back and forth on Maron's WTF, but his Newman interview this week was entertaining.

josh otm

"sonny boy" is wonderful

As is "She Chose Me."

never heard the Sinatra story

http://www.maximumfun.org/bullseye/bullseye-jesse-thorn-randy-newman

On my five favorites....

ta for this, agree with number 1, and glad Harps & Angels got a nod too :-)

He's written a song.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a6Hk2L2G_W0

Just saw that

"Don't touch your face - I saw you!"

https://skeletonstv.bandcamp.com/album/i-think-its-going-to-rain-today

Finally got the Original Album series yesterday that I'd meant to buy for ages but hadn't been in the racks locally.
So have now heard his 1st 5 which are pretty great. Wasn't sure what to expect in terms of settings etc so 1st l.p. was a bit of a surprise. But most of its great.
Will be listening to this quite a bit I hope.

ok so when I was a young'n in southern california my hatred for robert hilburn was at nuclear levels 24 hours a day. just the original herb. never noticed anything until a press kit told him to, but then? once in the tank, could not shut up about his newest thing. Springsteen first, but then X, Lone Justice, the Blasters. Just constantly giving column space to these acts and comparing them to Springsteen every chance he got, among my friends Hilburn bashing was a sport we engaged at least twice weekly. Christ when Big Country happened my dude was like oh, it's almost as optimistic as U2. The pain. And yet.

I'm so going to preorder his Randy Newman book.

http://www.roberthilburnonline.com/inside-randy-newman.html

his website says "pre-orders being taken now" but there are zero live links to a pre-order. keep shooting yourself in the foot, Bob

He put out the cover a week or two ago:

I’m so excited about my Randy Newman biography (due Oct. 22) that I’m going to write some short teasers about the book on my website weekly. I’m starting this week with why I chose to write about Randy. The answer is at https://t.co/ji6RFnGgvD .@RandyNewman pic.twitter.com/TPHYPMImSh

— Robert Hilburn (@roberthilburn) August 13, 2024

i was so nice to stay away from this thread! see, i can be nice....

This is worth checking out---from Wiki on Good Old Boys:

Good Old Boys was initially envisioned as a concept album about a character named Johnny Cutler, an everyman of the Deep South. Newman made a demo of these songs on February 1, 1973: they were released as the bonus disc for the 2002 reissue, titled Johnny Cutler's Birthday.

The kernel of this concept survived into the released album, although as Newman's take on viewpoints from the inhabitants of the Deep South in general, rather than from a single individual character.

I got it while researching Newman, because I was writing about another Rhino double, the 20th Anniversary Edition of Randy Newman's Faust, as well as The Randy Newman Songbook, Vol. 1: short, not too sweet, and archived here because ancient Voice links can be unreliable:
https://myvil.blogspot.com/2005/12/sandman-coming.html

wiki: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Good_Old_Boys_(Randy_Newman_album)

And here's Johnny (says Full Albun, and I think it is):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8cN15bppefQ

I know how I knew about such thangs on 11th Ave., but how the hell did Newman? Sure, he had relatives in New Orleans, but---

And speaking of covers, Etta James did right by "Let's Burn Down The Cornfield," "You Can Leave Your Hat On," and hopefully others I don't know about---but this is one of my favorite performances by anybody, "God's Song," on her good s/t:

http://myvil.blogspot.com/2005/12/sandman-coming.html

damn, sorry! Here tis:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GDzxnExnexE

"We'll be right back, after we go shoot up"

Randy, band, and Hollywood Bowl Orchestra at set break, 201x

"next time bring your fuckin' friends."

- randy, just prior to encore at the half-full tilles center, 2011

you've got a fuckin' friend in me, if you can fill some more seats in this dump

I'm reading the new Hilburn book, and man, I am learning so much about Randy Newman. Just a fascinating overview of his life and career. Good overview/review from Christgau (one of the first prominent critics to really "get" Newman) here:

https://robertchristgau.substack.com/p/a-few-words-in-praise-of-randy-newman

A good observation (in both book and Xgau) is just, when you think about it, how unique Newman is, how when you listen to him, he just rarely brings to mind anyone else. He's one of one. The other (in both book and Xgau) is that Newman really puts the "wrought" in songwriting, which is apparently so stressful and arduous for him that film composing was essentially a fallback distraction when the songs just weren't coming.

Also learned, from the book, how Randy would sometimes spend days alone just watching TV, pretty much anything, and also how many of his songs were inspired by really specific sources (books, short stories, movies, etc., from "2001" to a weird obsession with Albania) but shaped into new forms that barely reflected their origins.

I keep coming back to that song Cowboy from his debut album, what a masterpiece. The gently strummed (literally cowboy-) chords completely betray the sophistication of the rest which I'm guessing comes from the same influence of 20th century classical that was also on so much film music of the time. And as Harry proved, just as compelling of a song sung a cappella.

I like Scott Walker's version too.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F8n43NiGc04

Deluxe two-CD reissue of Trouble in Paradise, completely remastered, out next month.

This edition will also feature Un Samedi En Décembre, a promotional live album originally released exclusively in France and included with early French copies of the album and the previous unissued demos.

Disc: 1
1 I Love L.A. (2025 Remaster)
2 Christmas in Capetown (2025 Remaster)
3 The Blues (2025 Remaster)
4 Same Girl (2025 Remaster)
5 Mikey's (2025 Remaster)
6 My Life Is Good (2025 Remaster)
7 Miami (2025 Remaster)
8 Real Emotional Girl (2025 Remaster)
9 Take Me Back (2025 Remaster)
10 There's a Party at My House (2025 Remaster)
11 I'm Different (2025 Remaster)
12 Song for the Dead (2025 Remaster)
13 I Love L.A. (Demo)
14 Christmas in Cape Town (Demo)
15 The Blues (Demo)
16 Same Girl (Demo)
17 My Life Is Good (Demo)
18 Miami (Demo)
19 Real Emotional Girl (Demo)
20 Take Me Back (Demo)
21 There's a Party at My House (Demo)
22 I'm Different (Demo)
23 Song for the Dead (Demo)
24 Big Fat Country Song (Something to Sing About) (Demo)
25 Rainbow (Demo)

Disc: 2
1 Ragtime (Extrait de la Bande Originale du Film) [Live in Paris, France, 1982]
2 Louisiana 1927 (Live in Paris, France, 1982)
3 It's Money That I Love (Live in Paris, France, 1982)
4 Sail Away (Live in Paris, France, 1982)
5 Old Man (Live in Paris, France, 1982)
6 Love Story (Live in Paris, France, 1982)
7 Short People (Live in Paris, France, 1982)
8 Christmas in Cape Town (Live in Paris, France, 1982)
9 Rednecks (Live in Paris, France, 1982)
10 Baltimore (Live in Paris, France, 1982)
11 I Think It's Going to Rain Today (Live in Paris, France, 1982)
12 You Can Leave Your Hat On (Live in Paris, France, 1982)
13 Marie (Live in Paris, France, 1982)
14 Ragtime (Live in Paris, France, 1982)

FWIW, this is out now and it's the definitive digital release of this album. Better sound than the old CD and the extras are at least pretty good. Hopefully it does well enough that WB will release more. (Reportedly the previous reissue campaign stopped after three albums because sales for the two-disc Faust release was so bad, Rhino panicked and pulled the plug. Why they thought a deluxe reissue of a very poor-selling album would do better is beyond me.)

Faust is hugely underrated

Love "Feels Like Home"

It's too bad the stage production didn't last long and never made it to Broadway. (IIRC Newman staged some stripped-down versions later on, possibly to help generate interest and sell the idea of financing more productions, but to no avail.)

That reminds me, I once imagined how it could work if you could stage it with rock singers, but from the indie world instead of the album's guest stars (something you could do as one-offs that would be theoretically easier to organize without megastars involved).