Randy Newman: C or D/S & D

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