Randy Newman
In his four-decade career as a singer and songwriter, Randy Newman has given voice to everyone from slave traders to yuppie scum to con artists to children's toys, with a democratic spirit that reflects a quintessentially American sensibility. Newman learned to see the world from different perspectives early in life, as his childhood was divided between Los Angeles and New Orleans. Born into a family with a rich music tradition–his uncles Alfred, Emil, and Lionel Newman were successful film composers–Newman caught the tail end of the songwriter-for-hire era in the '60s, and contributed songs to albums by Dusty Springfield, among others. He made his own debut as a recording artist in 1968, with a lush self-titled record that met with critical praise and commercial indifference. That established a pattern for Newman's career, although with his sophomore album, 1970's masterful 12 Songs, he began to gather a following beyond critics and fellow songwriters. Combining dark humor with deeply felt emotion in sometimes uncomfortable configurations, 12 Songs captured Newman coming into his own, a process he continued with 1972's Sail Away, as well as 1974's Good Old Boys, a richly textured, warts-and-all song cycle about the American South. Newman finally had a hit in 1977 with "Short People," which used a ridiculous prejudice to condemn intolerance in general, though the joke flew over many indignant listeners' heads. More fine albums and semi-hits followed, and in the '80s, Newman turned film scoring into a second career, composing music for Ragtime, The Natural, and many others. Apart from a musical adaptation of Faust, film work took up most of Newman's time in the '90s (though he made a memorable return to pop songs in 1999 with Bad Love), and, after many nominations, he finally won an Oscar for "If I Didn't Have You" from 2001's Monsters, Inc. Currently, Newman's work can be heard in the movie Seabiscuit and on The Randy Newman Songbook Vol. 1, Newman's Nonesuch debut, and the first of three albums revisiting his past. Newman recently spoke to The Onion A.V. Club about geographical songwriting, humor that never goes out of style, and entertaining children.
The Onion: The Randy Newman Songbook forced you to spend a lot of time with your old songs. Were there any surprises when you looked at them?
Randy Newman: Well, you know, I was surprised at the consistency. Whether good or bad, there were no real jumps in quality or drop-offs that I could tell when I listened to it. Born Again is kind of an odd album, but they're not bad songs. I was surprised. There were things I wrote for the last record that could have been on 12 Songs. Maybe the last album is a little better. Things held up pretty well. There was nothing completely ridiculous.
O: That would probably count as a pleasant surprise.
RN: Yeah, it was. There were no real bad surprises. Some things I would have… A lot of things I would have done differently, in terms of tempo or arrangement. I did "Rednecks" a little square, maybe. I was just listening for what I wanted to do, really. I wasn't super-critical. I did about 30 of them, and [producer] Mitchell Froom and I took the ones that sequenced best. Not the best songs, necessarily, but the ones that felt best together.
O: Did you expect to stick with your concert repertoire more than you did?
RN: No, I didn't. I would have figured that "Feels Like Home" would have been on there. Or "Old Man," maybe. That's one of my better songs. Or "Short People." Is "I Love L.A." on there? No. I recorded them, but they didn't seem to fit as well as a song like "Let Me Go," which is not a great song, or "Living Without You," but they felt right on there. It's sort of an ugly Norah Jones record. You can put it on and eat potato chips and drink Pepsi to it, unlike my other records.
O: The title echoes Ella Fitzgerald's great songbook albums. Aren't you kind of inviting accusations of hubris by doing this yourself?
RN: Yeah, if it were my idea. But who's going to know it's not? Yeah, of course, it's like Gershwin or Irving Berlin, but it's not. I mean, I know. I know I'm not Gershwin, but I think that the record company, the people at Nonesuch, wanted me to get looked at in that kind of way, as a serious songwriter who's important to some degree.