Randy Newman: C or D/S & D

Now I can't get the image of Shakey (whom I've never met, so can't actually imagine) making a pinched Seinfeld face and saying, "Newman," through clenched teeth.

they say that it's funny
yes, that's what they say
so i sit down and i watch it
day after day...

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

― puff puff post (uh oh I'm having a fantasy), Friday, August 10, 2012 10:37 PM (Yesterday)

hahahaha this is fantastic

I only heard the song "Yellow Man" of Harry Nilsson's NILSSON SINGS NEWMAN, which as mentioned is so shickoingly gorgeous I think I can be excused for never paying attention to the words and somehow thinking it was a moving ode to a full mooon

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y9sJEXhCDc8

you are actually criticizing Randy Newman for getting his tone too perfect

btw I think this is essentially true fwiw and is probably the most illuminating thing I took away from this. to be fair, it doesn't really make me like the song any more - some imperfections in the tone or more overt peek-behind-the-curtains sort of lines would have improved it imho

don't feel bad Shakes, a lot of people out there think that Newman really does love L.A., you even hear the song at Clippers games IIRC

well that's the thing about "i love l.a." of course randy loves the city. it's where he's lived most of his life, and where he has chosen to stay. and of course he sees a lot here to make fun of. his genuine affection for the city he's making fun of is a big part of the soul of that song. (and he's really making gentle fun, at best.)

Shakey being a hueg Tarantino fan adds to the comedy here.

Randy could live anywhere but lives near Hollywood, doesn't he? He does love LA.

oh, xp

exactly, you just can't take it at face value (I guess it's a bad comp because I Love L.A. has at least SOME truth to it, but c'mon, this is Randy Newman)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cvLeQbwuKys

At last we get to see the comments Rednecks and Short People would have provoked if YouTube had existed in the 70s. The Toy Story guy is racist WTF???

ugh

Flooding ALL & ONLY White countries with non-Whites and telling everyone to "assimilate" to create a "brown future" is White genocide.

Africa will still be full of Africans.

Asia will still be full of Asians.

Only White children will suffer from this.

Read the UN genocide conventions: It is genocide plain and simple!

Anti-racist is a codeword for anti-White.

Kevin Culver 13 minutes ago

dorian that's your fault i read that

Oh is that the one at the top now? Sorry.

HOW ABOUT IM DREAMING OF FALSE JEW KHAZAR *SYNAGOGUEOF SATAN (REVELATION 2:9) . HAHA :)`
666ASTANA 4 hours ago

"Political Science" is CLASSIC. I'd never listened to Randy Newman but the local record store had "Sail Away" and "Good Old Boys" for a dollar each and i have been rocking them for the past week or so. Great stuff, so effing sarcastic.

Gotta say the first song I listened to was "Rednecks" and I was LOLling the entire time.

"college boys from LSU/went in dumb/came out dumb too"

Don't know our ass from a hole in the ground

GOB and SA are on endless repeat at my house this fall. I don't think I've heard a classic record like these that contained so many beautiful songs in a long time.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kBux4AlGQzM

I mean sweet Jesus, this is some beautiful music.

I've seem him live a few times, and each time I've been amazed by his remarkable economy. For all the words in his songs, there often really aren't that many words. He just makes them all count. "Sail Away," for example, is just three brief verses, and a couple of simple choruses, but the song conveys so much.

sail away's practically an epic!!

Josh otm. He's really the anti-Elvis Costello.

I love how he says "I've been his friend since we were little babies" in "Davy the Fat Boy".

I went back to that record store (Full Moon Records in Atlanta) and found "Live" and it's pretty damn awesome. Also they had "All Things Must Pass" 3xLP set in very good condition also for $1!

I love the link he plays in rock history, too. His uncles were all film composers, as are a couple of cousins. Meanwhile, his best bud growing up was Lenny Waronker (they took piano lessons together) whose father Simon (after writing music in Hollywood) founded Liberty records, who made its fortune off Ross Bagdasarian, aka David Saville, who did the Chipmunks (Simon Waronker was where "Simon" came from). Simon parlayed that success into stuff like Jan & Dean. But thanks to Lenny, Liberty/Simon hired Randy Newman as a songwriter when he was still a teen. Eventually Lenny goes to Warner Bros. and brings along Randy and Van Dyke Parks. Etc.

'davy the fat boy' is blood-chilling, espec: 'YOU'VE GOT TO LET THIS FAT BOY IN YOUR LIFE!'

just reviving to say that Spotify now has what appears to be a very comprehensive Randy back catalogue on there. there used to be gaps and many of the albums missing but now it's the full thwack; live albums, soundtracks, the whole bit. at least in the UK.

Thanks.

Also, Billboard keynote http://www.billboard.com/biz/articles/news/record-labels/5770720/randy-newman-talks-film-scoring-new-studio-album-kanye-wests

Have to admit I only ever really listened to the obvious albums: Sail Away, Gold Old Boys and Twelve Songs. Where should I go next?

that url is a little misleading

harps and angels
xpost

thx

So far so good. Maybe on to the s/t debut next.

Little Criminals is the other classic i guess. also Land Of Dreams and Trouble In Paradise are great and under rated too!

Randy must have been the first rock musician I ever knowingly heard, though not cognizant at the time of his respectable back catalogue. Watching Toy Story in 1995 as a little kid, sick with fever, hearing him sing "and I will go sailing.....noooooo more..." is one of those kiddie memories that has a little but secure place in my heart. It became even more special when I grew up and became a big fan of his 70s work. Sail Away is an album I never get sick of listening to, and Good Ol' Boys isn't far behind.

Is anything worth getting after the 70s? I've not investigated those yet.

i want to know more about your youth. were you prohibited from listening to rock and/or roll?

Not really, but at five/six, I hadn't got around to checking out zappa/vu/beefheart/can, et al.

well sure but

when were you born

nineteen-ninety.

damn son

there are rock singers who are not as obscure as beefheart and lou reed,
sometimes you hear them on the radio

no kidding.

we didn't play the radio in my house.

to say randy newman was the very first one may not be true. but it's a first memory which i subsequently came to know as the author of "rednecks" and "god's song".

there were other extenuating circumstances which meant that music was not played much in our house. mostly revolving around my mother suffering extensively from mental illness during my childhood, other interests at the time, etc.

in any case, that's irrelevant. anyone know if newman is any good after the 70s?

There are more than a few glimmers of acid brilliance here and there, and some lovely ballads, but a lot of his later albums are actually only good enough. Which ain't bad!

Believe it or not, his songbooks, which feature songs already released performed by just him on piano, are really good. The version of "Lonely At the Top" might actually be even better than the original Sail Away version.

why is Little Criminals held up as a bad Randy Newman album when the second half (start with "In Germany Before the War" + the second side) is so good? I think it's almost as good a second half as Sail Away.

"I'll Be Home" sounds a lot different in sequence here than it does on Nilsson Sings Newman ( and it's not just Newman's voice compared to Nilsson).

the title track is great, I love the way that it manages to mock these people's delusions but still have that excitement + buoyancy be infectious