Bob's Acclaimed New Randy Newman Biography
Photo: Steve Starr / Corbis / Getty Images
Praise:"Apart from his many other astonishing gifts, I believe newman to be the finest American satirist in any medium in my lifetime."
- Garry Trudeau, "Doonesbury" "At last, the biography that Randy Newman has long-deserved. The emotional precision, the humor and sweep, the truths and secrets behind his remarkable body of work.. it's all here in Robert Hilburn's heartfelt and indispensable account of America's finest songwriter. Leave it to Hilburn to pull back the curtain on the incredible life of Newman, as shy genius who clearly trusted him enough to point him in all the right directions. It's more than a great read, it's an invitation to re-visit Randy Newman's work with renewed appreciation for the man who uniquely defined the American Experience just when we needed it most."
- Cameron Crowe "Randy Newman is our great master of American song and storytelling."
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Writing about the book, Greil Marcus, author of 'Mystery Train,' declared:By: Greil Marcus
Until now, with Robert Hilburn’s new A Few Words in Defense of Our Country, the book on Newman was Kevin Courrier’s unfailingly inquisitive Randy Newman’s American Dreams (Toronto: ECW Press, 2005); there wasn’t even a 33 1/3 series entry on 12 Songs or Bad Love. Written with Newman’s cooperation—it ends with his children speaking—this is a project Hilburn has been nurturing even before it appeared before him as a book. First writing about music for the Los Angeles Times in 1966, the chief pop critic there from 1970 to 2005, and continuing as a contributor long after that, he was on the ground for the whole story. He watched it take shape. He caught the grandeur of Newman’s ambitions, but, as one of the best interviewers in the field—you could feel, as you read his conversations with everyone from Bob Dylan on down, that people trusted him, that they wanted to tell him what they didn’t want to tell anyone else—he never missed the frustrations that bled from Newman when he fell short, and in his book he has gotten it all on the page. The title is more than perfect—it speaks to Hilburn’s ambitions as much as Newman’s. The portrait he draws is of an artistic citizen, a critical patriot, a singer and composer taking the First Amendment not as a grant of the freedom to speak, but as the obligation to speak, and to find the form that will translate the American predicament into tales that deserve to sink into the stories America tells itself about itself as deeply as any words from Mark Twain, Frederick Douglass, Zora Neale Hurston, Chuck Berry, Jackson Pollock, or Franklin Roosevelt, carried by melodies and arrangements that can seem, as Harold Bloom said of the Band’s songs, as if they had always been there, waiting for the right person to find them. Who wrote “Sail Away”? Was it a Jewish guy from a well-off family in Los Angeles, or the country itself, which before Newman staked his claim to it had never had the nerve to say it all out loud? The great drama of Hilburn’s book, as it ends, is that the story isn’t over—that there are a lot more words in defense of his country Randy Newman is going to have to write and sing.
For his book, Hilburn asked various people to contribute a paragraph or a page. I was lucky to be one of them, and to have a chance to live up to Bob’s work. Around the time of Randy Newman’s 12 Songs, his second album, way back in the late sixties, his producer, Lenny Waronker, liked to call him “The King of the Suburban Blues Singers.” There was an affinity with Robert Johnson, whose King of the Delta Blues Singers, a 1961 collection of songs recorded in 1936 and 1937, shared a sense of fate as a joke everyone would get sooner or later. Me and the devil were walking side by side Me and the devil were walking side by side You can hold my hand, honey, you know I love to see you smile It wouldn’t be long before Randy would play the devil himself in “Sail Away,” and as the slave recruiter tempting Africans on the boat to the USA, enter into a classic role, the Yankee Pedlar, the Slick Willie, the All-American con artist, who can sell swampland in Florida to New Englanders and the Middle Passage as a vacation. “He traded the landlord out of bed and breakfast and left with most of the money in the settlement,” Constance Rourke wrote in 1931 in American Humor of her match to Randy’s slave man—the only difference being that he left with all the people. As a song title, “A Few Words in Defense of Our Country” is the book Randy Newman has been writing all these many decades down the pike. He’s played every role, from the worst to—everyone else, he himself hiding in the same crowd of anyone listening. A Few Words In Defense of Our Country: The Biography of Randy NewmanFrom: The Aquarian - Rock Reads
Randy Newman may be my favorite songwriter. Note for note and lyric for lyric, he has astounded, confounded, inspired, and moved me more than most (as nearly all my other favorite songwriters tend to concur). He is the master emotional manipulator, a spinner of sordid tales told by nefarious narrators and broken spirits that burrow deeply into subjects we avoid like racism, misogyny, jingoism, violence, and death. Subsequently, Robert Hilburn is a hero to those of us in the music journalism biz, having toiled at the highest levels for the L.A Times for 35 years and authored several seminal books, including biographies of Paul Simon (reviewed previously here) and Johnny Cash. Throughout, he captured almost all of Newman’s career in real time and has gathered a wealth of experiences in his delightfully crafted A Few Words in Defense of Our Country.
Hilburn’s Newman biography is a comprehensive endeavor, meticulously researched and filled with analytical charm, covering the young professional songsmith on his circuitous journey from a working songsmith into his guise as a distinctive singer-songwriter and finally the composer of an astounding number of the best movie soundtracks of the past half-century. Having previously reviewed two compelling books on Newman in this space – both worthy of exploring – this is the one I would recommend reading first. His life, his triumphs and failures, his loves and losses, his family’s joys and strife, along with his anxious artistic travails, are set against the grimly glorious collection of songs that continue to challenge us. |
Bob's Thoughts on Randy Newman
Randy Newman's Pop Music Influences
Randy Newman’s musical roots are in classical music, which he studied from childhood through composition classes at UCLA, but he has also embraced a wide range of pop styles and artists,from country to jazz. Two figures from valuable Black music strains, however, stand out. Fats Domino didn’t look like a teen idol in the 1950s, but his warm, infectious sound struck Randy with the same life-changing force that millions of teens attributed to Elvis and the Beatles.
Domino was a key part of the 1950s rock and roll revolution, but the roly-poly, five-foot-five New Orleans-native did not offer a trace of the music’s overriding rebellion in his feel-good mix of Louisiana shuffle, boogie-woogie, R&B and even occasionally country and Cajun. Where rival rocker Little Richard kicked his piano bench out of the way on stage so he could stand up and pound the keys while screaming the lyrics to “Tutti Frutti,” Domino sat politely, smiling warmly at the audience as he gently swayed from side to side as he played such winning hits as “Blueberry Hill” and “Poor Me.”
Domino’s influence on Randy was multi-level. Early on, Randy played Fat’s songs on the piano during breaks from Brahms, Mozart, and Beethoven. Later, his vocal style would reflect elements of Domino’s conversational drawl, and his eventual performance style would reflect Domino’s anti-flamboyance. The latter was in keeping with what Randy’s uncles told him about always letting the music speak for itself—don’t hype in interviews or in performances.
The only other artist to touch Newman as deeply was Ray Charles, who studied classical piano at a school for blind children in Florida. Charles showed up on the R&B charts in the early 1950s with records that were covered years later by Elvis Presley, Bobby Darin, and other white artists. With the shout-and-response vitality of “I Got a Woman” in the mid-1950s, But The Genius of Ray Charles album sealed the deal for Newman.
The LP was compelling on several levels as Charles boldly mixed several R&B numbers with orchestra-led versions of some pop standards, including Johnny Mercer and Harold Arlen’s “Come Rain or Come Shine,” and numbers associated with Louis Jordan, the Black bandleader who had the talent and vision in the 1930s to mix jazz, swing, blues, and boogie-woogie and then top it off with a comic flair. In Charles’ hands, “Let the Good Times Roll” and “Don’t Let the Sun Catch You Crying’” two of Jordan’s signature numbers, felt right at home among the more pop-styled songs. Charles went even further three years later by releasing two widely influential collections of country songs by such writers as Hank Williams (“You Win Again”) and Don Gibson (“I Can’t Stop Loving You”).
Newman wasn’t interested in updating old songs in his own career, but he learned a lesson that would prove crucial. As a songwriter and record-maker, he wouldn’t limit himself to a single music genre. He wanted to be free to draw upon elements from any source—classical music, pop standards, R&B, Broadway, rock, and film, but he never forgot the lessons he learned from Charles.
“I loved Ray Charles and I still do,” Newman said. “I felt he always went to the right place, whatever he was doing with the song, singing, or playing the piano, He made you feel the song and that’s the most important thing in what we do. You’ve got to make the listener feel what you are saying is authentic.”
Domino was a key part of the 1950s rock and roll revolution, but the roly-poly, five-foot-five New Orleans-native did not offer a trace of the music’s overriding rebellion in his feel-good mix of Louisiana shuffle, boogie-woogie, R&B and even occasionally country and Cajun. Where rival rocker Little Richard kicked his piano bench out of the way on stage so he could stand up and pound the keys while screaming the lyrics to “Tutti Frutti,” Domino sat politely, smiling warmly at the audience as he gently swayed from side to side as he played such winning hits as “Blueberry Hill” and “Poor Me.”
Domino’s influence on Randy was multi-level. Early on, Randy played Fat’s songs on the piano during breaks from Brahms, Mozart, and Beethoven. Later, his vocal style would reflect elements of Domino’s conversational drawl, and his eventual performance style would reflect Domino’s anti-flamboyance. The latter was in keeping with what Randy’s uncles told him about always letting the music speak for itself—don’t hype in interviews or in performances.
The only other artist to touch Newman as deeply was Ray Charles, who studied classical piano at a school for blind children in Florida. Charles showed up on the R&B charts in the early 1950s with records that were covered years later by Elvis Presley, Bobby Darin, and other white artists. With the shout-and-response vitality of “I Got a Woman” in the mid-1950s, But The Genius of Ray Charles album sealed the deal for Newman.
The LP was compelling on several levels as Charles boldly mixed several R&B numbers with orchestra-led versions of some pop standards, including Johnny Mercer and Harold Arlen’s “Come Rain or Come Shine,” and numbers associated with Louis Jordan, the Black bandleader who had the talent and vision in the 1930s to mix jazz, swing, blues, and boogie-woogie and then top it off with a comic flair. In Charles’ hands, “Let the Good Times Roll” and “Don’t Let the Sun Catch You Crying’” two of Jordan’s signature numbers, felt right at home among the more pop-styled songs. Charles went even further three years later by releasing two widely influential collections of country songs by such writers as Hank Williams (“You Win Again”) and Don Gibson (“I Can’t Stop Loving You”).
Newman wasn’t interested in updating old songs in his own career, but he learned a lesson that would prove crucial. As a songwriter and record-maker, he wouldn’t limit himself to a single music genre. He wanted to be free to draw upon elements from any source—classical music, pop standards, R&B, Broadway, rock, and film, but he never forgot the lessons he learned from Charles.
“I loved Ray Charles and I still do,” Newman said. “I felt he always went to the right place, whatever he was doing with the song, singing, or playing the piano, He made you feel the song and that’s the most important thing in what we do. You’ve got to make the listener feel what you are saying is authentic.”
Randy Newman and the Award-Winning Film Music
When Rand Newman awoke on his fifth birthday in the family’s apartment across from Beverly Hills High School, the surprise present that his father, Irving, had slipped into the room overnight told him a lot about how he would spend the rest of his life: a brown upright piano.
Growing up Randy had heard countless tales about the legendary role his uncles played in Hollywood film music. Alfred Newman, the most notable, received forty-five Academy Award nominations and won a record nine Oscars. Randy’s father wanted him to follow in his uncles’ footsteps, and Randy dutifully began preparing himself, studying classical piano lessons and taking musical composition courses at UCLA. In time, however, the idea of a career in film music became increasingly daunting as Randy realized the expectations he’d have to meet.
Gradually, pop music became an increasingly attractive alternative he switched his focus
to pop music, where he began making acclaimed albums in 1968, concentrating on songs that
decried what he saw as defects in the American character, from racism to homophobia. It wasn’t until 1988 that he had the confidence to commit himself to film music. At that point, he had only written three film scores in twenty years. Over the next twenty, he would write eighteen and a musical.
Newman met the family's expectations. He received twenty-two Oscar nominations and won two Oscars for such films as The Natural and Marriage Story, and the phenomenal Toy Story series. He has been able to excel in both film and pop music because he brings a sophistication and sweep to his songs that far exceeds the three-chord playbook followed by most pop and rock songwriters; it has been said he plays an orchestra the way Hendrix played a guitar.
Randy loved working with orchestras in films, but he felt the songs in his albums were ultimately more important, the songs about conditions in the country. Re-focusing on pop in the late 1990s when he was nearing sixty, an age when most of the best songwriters are long past their peak, he delivered three albums—Bad Love, Harps and Angels and Dark Matter—that reflected the commentary and ambition of his best early work. He had exceeded all family
expectations.
Growing up Randy had heard countless tales about the legendary role his uncles played in Hollywood film music. Alfred Newman, the most notable, received forty-five Academy Award nominations and won a record nine Oscars. Randy’s father wanted him to follow in his uncles’ footsteps, and Randy dutifully began preparing himself, studying classical piano lessons and taking musical composition courses at UCLA. In time, however, the idea of a career in film music became increasingly daunting as Randy realized the expectations he’d have to meet.
Gradually, pop music became an increasingly attractive alternative he switched his focus
to pop music, where he began making acclaimed albums in 1968, concentrating on songs that
decried what he saw as defects in the American character, from racism to homophobia. It wasn’t until 1988 that he had the confidence to commit himself to film music. At that point, he had only written three film scores in twenty years. Over the next twenty, he would write eighteen and a musical.
Newman met the family's expectations. He received twenty-two Oscar nominations and won two Oscars for such films as The Natural and Marriage Story, and the phenomenal Toy Story series. He has been able to excel in both film and pop music because he brings a sophistication and sweep to his songs that far exceeds the three-chord playbook followed by most pop and rock songwriters; it has been said he plays an orchestra the way Hendrix played a guitar.
Randy loved working with orchestras in films, but he felt the songs in his albums were ultimately more important, the songs about conditions in the country. Re-focusing on pop in the late 1990s when he was nearing sixty, an age when most of the best songwriters are long past their peak, he delivered three albums—Bad Love, Harps and Angels and Dark Matter—that reflected the commentary and ambition of his best early work. He had exceeded all family
expectations.
Behind the Humor of Randy Newman
Randy Newman is the master of an art form - humor - that has all but disappeared in pop music, except for occasional parodies. Wry, wise, and winning, Newman's humor comes at you from all sorts of surprising directions - it can make you smile and it can make you laugh out loud. Sometimes he's just having fun with a song, but mostly he's using humor to help illuminate his views on shortcomings in the American character. He also felt humor, satire, and irony would make his judgments feel less pedantic.
The humor came naturally. Randy's brother Alan says he had a strong sense of jocularity from childhood on, including strange things that would often exasperate people. When Randy was about twelve, he took all his presents into the family bathroom on Christmas morning and locked the door behind him. Then he started "oohing" and "aahing" loudly as he opened each one, leaving those outside trying to figure out which ones he liked.
In school, Randy once came up with a cock and bull story about how he couldn't do a homework paper because his family couldn't afford a typewriter Alan said, adding, 'When my parents went to open house, the teacher said, 'Oh, you poor people. Randy told me about your problems' - or something to that effect. My parents at the time, no doubt, dressed to the nines."
And, there was the time that Randy had so much trouble finding a parking spot in UCLA's notoriously overcrowded campus lots that he bought a plastic Jesus, put in on the dashboard and parked the car in a nearby church lot. It worked fine until someone stole the car.
When asked to write a song for Frank Sinatra in the early 1970s, Randy didn't try to flatter the singer's debonair, playboy image, in "lonely at the Top"; he flat-out mocked it. No wonder Sinatra passed on recording the tune.
I've been around the world
Had my pick of any girl
You'd think I'd be happy
But I'm not
Ev'rybody knows my name
But it's just a a crazy game
Oh, it's lonely at the top
A world away from the sophistication and style of "Lonely at the Top," Randy gave us some of his funniest images in the biggest pop hit "Short People," a song so politically incorrect that most record companies might not even release it today. The lyrics in part:
They got little baby legs
That stand so low
You got to pick 'em up
Just to say hello
They got little cars
That go beep, beep, beep They got little voices
Goin' peep, peep, peep
They got grubby little fingers
And dirty little minds
They're gonna get you every time
He also employed humor in "I'm Dreaming," a song - patterned after Irving Berlin's deeply sentimental "White Christmas" - about a racial prejudice he saw facing President Barack Obama. "Early on in Obama's term, there was heat generated by issues that you wouldn't think would cause such passion," he explained to Slate. "Even the term 'Obamacare,' the way it's spit out, like he was some kind of witch doctor."
As the re-election campaign neared in 2012, Newman released - again using the unreliable narrator approac to express a racist voter's embrace of Obama's opponent.
So he won't run the hundred in ten seconds flat
So he won't have a pretty jump shot, or be an Olympic acrobat
So he won't know much about global warming
Is that really where you're at?
He won't be the brightest, perhaps
But he'll be the whitest
And I'll vote for that
"I'm Dreaming" was released as a single, accompanied by humorous and pointed video showing most of the country's white presidents.
Humor is rarely heard in pop music because it is so difficult to employ effectively, especially when dealing with significant subject matter. It's such a delicate, creative balance that no one has come close to matching Newman in the rock era and it would be surprising if anyone ever will.
The humor came naturally. Randy's brother Alan says he had a strong sense of jocularity from childhood on, including strange things that would often exasperate people. When Randy was about twelve, he took all his presents into the family bathroom on Christmas morning and locked the door behind him. Then he started "oohing" and "aahing" loudly as he opened each one, leaving those outside trying to figure out which ones he liked.
In school, Randy once came up with a cock and bull story about how he couldn't do a homework paper because his family couldn't afford a typewriter Alan said, adding, 'When my parents went to open house, the teacher said, 'Oh, you poor people. Randy told me about your problems' - or something to that effect. My parents at the time, no doubt, dressed to the nines."
And, there was the time that Randy had so much trouble finding a parking spot in UCLA's notoriously overcrowded campus lots that he bought a plastic Jesus, put in on the dashboard and parked the car in a nearby church lot. It worked fine until someone stole the car.
When asked to write a song for Frank Sinatra in the early 1970s, Randy didn't try to flatter the singer's debonair, playboy image, in "lonely at the Top"; he flat-out mocked it. No wonder Sinatra passed on recording the tune.
I've been around the world
Had my pick of any girl
You'd think I'd be happy
But I'm not
Ev'rybody knows my name
But it's just a a crazy game
Oh, it's lonely at the top
A world away from the sophistication and style of "Lonely at the Top," Randy gave us some of his funniest images in the biggest pop hit "Short People," a song so politically incorrect that most record companies might not even release it today. The lyrics in part:
They got little baby legs
That stand so low
You got to pick 'em up
Just to say hello
They got little cars
That go beep, beep, beep They got little voices
Goin' peep, peep, peep
They got grubby little fingers
And dirty little minds
They're gonna get you every time
He also employed humor in "I'm Dreaming," a song - patterned after Irving Berlin's deeply sentimental "White Christmas" - about a racial prejudice he saw facing President Barack Obama. "Early on in Obama's term, there was heat generated by issues that you wouldn't think would cause such passion," he explained to Slate. "Even the term 'Obamacare,' the way it's spit out, like he was some kind of witch doctor."
As the re-election campaign neared in 2012, Newman released - again using the unreliable narrator approac to express a racist voter's embrace of Obama's opponent.
So he won't run the hundred in ten seconds flat
So he won't have a pretty jump shot, or be an Olympic acrobat
So he won't know much about global warming
Is that really where you're at?
He won't be the brightest, perhaps
But he'll be the whitest
And I'll vote for that
"I'm Dreaming" was released as a single, accompanied by humorous and pointed video showing most of the country's white presidents.
Humor is rarely heard in pop music because it is so difficult to employ effectively, especially when dealing with significant subject matter. It's such a delicate, creative balance that no one has come close to matching Newman in the rock era and it would be surprising if anyone ever will.
Sampling of the Dozens of Randy Newman Songs That Address The Socio-Political Problems Dividing America in 2024
Bitterness Over Ethnic Changing Neighborhoods: "Mikey" (1983) - A bartender complains to a customer about how the neighborhood has changed, disliking even the new music, wishing for the old days.
North Beach has changed though
Since we were growin’ up
Didn’t used to be any spades here, now you got 'em
Didn’t used to be any Mexicans here, now you got 'em
Didn’t used to be any Chinamen here
Didn’t used to be this ugly music playing all the time
Where are we, on the moon?
Whatever happened to the old songs,
Mikey?
Like the Duke of Earl
The irony of the bartender longing for "Duke of Earl" is sublime - the song, of course, was recorded and co-written in 1961 by Gene Chandler, the stage name of Eugene Dixon, a black man.
Reassessing Actions in America's Past: "The Great Nations of Europe" (1999) - A lengthy historical narrative that addresses the destructive impact of European imperialism on countries around the world, a subject that would become and increasing part of the national socio-political dialogue in the 2000s.
Columbus sailed for India
Found Salvador instead
He shook hands with some Indians and soon they all were dead
They got TB and typhoid and athlete’s foot
Diphtheria and the flu
Excuse me – Great nations coming through
Anti-Immigration Forces: "Laugh and Be Happy" (2008) - A pep talk for the anxious underdog/underclass immigrants facing hostility in the U.S. Smile right in their face / Cause pretty soon / You're gonna take their place.Racism: "Rednecks" (1972) - a song whose language was so fiercely defiant it will stands as one of the most explosive slices of social commentary ever released by a major record label in America. It was an attack on racism, North and South, with special emphasis on the way many Blacks have been relegated to ghettos for several generations in big cities in the North.
Military Aggression: "Political Science" (1972) - a Dr. Strangelove-like sendup of military hawks and conservative isolationism that drew more laughs with each outlandish verse:
Asia's crowded and Europe's too old
Africa is far too hot
And Canada's too cold
And South America stole our name
Let's drop the big one
There'll be no one left to blame us
Unequal Justice: "Louisiana 1927" (1974) - The power of this song is that it sidestepped the concentration on personal struggle in the earlier tunes about the great floods of New Orleans to confront the factors surrounding the flood, including politics and race. This would give the song a deep relevance, making it, after Katrina, the state's unofficial anthem. Randy speaks for all the Louisiana flood victims - any anyone - who felt they had been sacrificed by the federal government and even their local public officials: They're trying to wash us away.
North Beach has changed though
Since we were growin’ up
Didn’t used to be any spades here, now you got 'em
Didn’t used to be any Mexicans here, now you got 'em
Didn’t used to be any Chinamen here
Didn’t used to be this ugly music playing all the time
Where are we, on the moon?
Whatever happened to the old songs,
Mikey?
Like the Duke of Earl
The irony of the bartender longing for "Duke of Earl" is sublime - the song, of course, was recorded and co-written in 1961 by Gene Chandler, the stage name of Eugene Dixon, a black man.
Reassessing Actions in America's Past: "The Great Nations of Europe" (1999) - A lengthy historical narrative that addresses the destructive impact of European imperialism on countries around the world, a subject that would become and increasing part of the national socio-political dialogue in the 2000s.
Columbus sailed for India
Found Salvador instead
He shook hands with some Indians and soon they all were dead
They got TB and typhoid and athlete’s foot
Diphtheria and the flu
Excuse me – Great nations coming through
Anti-Immigration Forces: "Laugh and Be Happy" (2008) - A pep talk for the anxious underdog/underclass immigrants facing hostility in the U.S. Smile right in their face / Cause pretty soon / You're gonna take their place.Racism: "Rednecks" (1972) - a song whose language was so fiercely defiant it will stands as one of the most explosive slices of social commentary ever released by a major record label in America. It was an attack on racism, North and South, with special emphasis on the way many Blacks have been relegated to ghettos for several generations in big cities in the North.
Military Aggression: "Political Science" (1972) - a Dr. Strangelove-like sendup of military hawks and conservative isolationism that drew more laughs with each outlandish verse:
Asia's crowded and Europe's too old
Africa is far too hot
And Canada's too cold
And South America stole our name
Let's drop the big one
There'll be no one left to blame us
Unequal Justice: "Louisiana 1927" (1974) - The power of this song is that it sidestepped the concentration on personal struggle in the earlier tunes about the great floods of New Orleans to confront the factors surrounding the flood, including politics and race. This would give the song a deep relevance, making it, after Katrina, the state's unofficial anthem. Randy speaks for all the Louisiana flood victims - any anyone - who felt they had been sacrificed by the federal government and even their local public officials: They're trying to wash us away.
Why Randy Newman?
Randy Newman has long been high on my short list of great American songwriters ever, but the main reason I wanted to write his biography is the uniqueness of his music. No one has written more purposefully and consistently about the socio-political problems dividing the nation than Newman.
He may be best known for "You've Got a Friend in Me," his disarming composition for Toy Story, or the cheerful lilt of "I Love L.A.," but the heart of his legacy is in the dozens of brilliant compositions detailing the injustices, from racism to economic disparity, that have contributed to the United States being as divided as any time since the Civil War.
"The songs are about things that need to be noticed, places like ghettos and slums that should shame everyone," he told me. "it hurts to see people living like that in this rich country, where the fact that one zip code entitles you to a better medical care and the wrong one can be a death sentence."
But racism isn't Newman's only target. He has written with equal insight and passion about a score of other issues, from sexism to homophobia in immigration hostility and flat-out human cruelty - and his writing style is as unique in pop as his subject matter.
Rather than the first-person pronouncements that have long been the blue-print of protest music, Newman uses a device he had seen in literature, the unreliable narrator. He assumes the role of a character to express the harmful views of that person, feeling the absurdity of the words is the best way to combat the viewpoint.
In addition to his art, Randy’s personal story is also fascinating. After being intimidated for years about following his famous uncles, Alfred and Lionel Newman, into film music (as was expected of him), he turned to pop music, where he built enough confidence to finally, at the age of 40, step up to the challenge. He was so successful in films, from his score to The Natural and his many contributions to the Toy Story series, that he has received twenty-two Oscar nominations and two Oscars. It is a resume that places him, arguably, as the greatest musical Newman of all.
He may be best known for "You've Got a Friend in Me," his disarming composition for Toy Story, or the cheerful lilt of "I Love L.A.," but the heart of his legacy is in the dozens of brilliant compositions detailing the injustices, from racism to economic disparity, that have contributed to the United States being as divided as any time since the Civil War.
"The songs are about things that need to be noticed, places like ghettos and slums that should shame everyone," he told me. "it hurts to see people living like that in this rich country, where the fact that one zip code entitles you to a better medical care and the wrong one can be a death sentence."
But racism isn't Newman's only target. He has written with equal insight and passion about a score of other issues, from sexism to homophobia in immigration hostility and flat-out human cruelty - and his writing style is as unique in pop as his subject matter.
Rather than the first-person pronouncements that have long been the blue-print of protest music, Newman uses a device he had seen in literature, the unreliable narrator. He assumes the role of a character to express the harmful views of that person, feeling the absurdity of the words is the best way to combat the viewpoint.
In addition to his art, Randy’s personal story is also fascinating. After being intimidated for years about following his famous uncles, Alfred and Lionel Newman, into film music (as was expected of him), he turned to pop music, where he built enough confidence to finally, at the age of 40, step up to the challenge. He was so successful in films, from his score to The Natural and his many contributions to the Toy Story series, that he has received twenty-two Oscar nominations and two Oscars. It is a resume that places him, arguably, as the greatest musical Newman of all.
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