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Randy Newman, Songwriter, button pusher - Randy Newman |
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Written by MCT
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Wednesday, 11 October 2006 |
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Page 1 of 2
 Randy Newman is thinking out loud, debating with himself how to fill the two hours he will be on stage during his new solo tour. Newman’s problem, however, is not in coming up with material to fill the time, but in deciding which songs he might have to omit.
“If you leave something out — ‘Guilty,’ ‘I Think It’s Going To Rain Today,’ ‘Sail Away’ — people won’t be happy,” reasons the singer-songwriter and Oscar-winning film composer, who since the late 1960s has amassed a body of finely crafted work that qualifies him as one of pop music’s most original talents. “But it’s hard not to do it.”
Newman, whose songs can be acerbic, provocative and even mordant, says this matter-of-factly during a phone interview from his home in Los Angeles.
And if Newman fans have to forgo one of their favorites — “Rednecks,” “You Can Leave Your Hat On,” “I Love L.A.,” “It’s Money That I Love” — they will be treated to one, perhaps two, new songs that will be part of the album Newman hopes to release next spring, his first recording since 1999’s “Bad Love.”
“I’ve got all of the songs started and some of them almost finished,” he says of the as-yet-untitled album. “Usually I have the songs written for an album before I go into the studio, but this is the first time I’m writing songs and working on them in the studio.”
Newman, whose music is a swirl of New Orleans-styled R&B, gospel, blues, country, ragtime, Tin Pan Alley and Stephen Foster, will most likely play the new tune “Losing You,” which he describes as “a ballad, a straight love song.”
The other contender is “A Few Words in Defense of My Country.” The song, Newman says, compares Dubya’s term in office to “administrations that were worse — Caligula, Nero, King Leopold in the Congo, Genghis Khan.” But Newman may not perform it — “It’s tough when you don’t have an ending.”
“I’ve played it in Europe,” he notes dryly. “It was sort of made for that — countries where there’s no defense.”
Another of Newman’s songs, “My Country,” which succinctly strips away the justifications necessary to wage war, was used recently in a TV commercial for a bank in the Carolinas. “The guy did sort of a country version,” Newman says. “It showed a family watching TV and bouncing words off the screen to talk to each other. That was the way they communicated.
“I’m happy I wrote that song,” he adds, with hardly a trace of irony.
Last month, Slate magazine quoted Newman’s fluke 1978 hit, “Short People,” to preface an article about a new study by Princeton University researchers showing that tall people earn more, on average, because they are smarter, on average.
“If I knew about that study, I would never had written that song,” quips Newman, who was widely denounced for promoting the prejudices his song targets. “I can’t believe that anyone has that kind of bias against people because of height. But maybe they do. There’s nothing I can do now. My motive was pure when I wrote it. When I die, it’ll be in the first two sentences of my obituary. And it’s not even my best work.”
When the talk turns to songwriters he admires, Newman mentions Jackson Browne, James Taylor, Jimmy Webb and Kanye West. He also says that Maroon 5’s songs “would have been hits anytime” in the rock era, and calls OutKast’s “Speakerboxxx/The Love Below” “a very good record.”
Although carrying a 2 {-hour show single-handedly can be taxing, Newman, who has a reputation for shyness, relishes being on stage. “I like it up there,” he says.
“I’m more comfortable on stage than in life. Why I don’t know. People as an audience appeal to me. When people are laughing or applauding, you gain — it’s a cliche to say it _ an enormous amount of energy.”
Asked if he has any thoughts about turning 63 on Nov. 28, Newman replies, “I don’t see much good about it, just more aches and pains. I’d rather not.”
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