Randy Newman: C or D/S & D

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"

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).