Randy Newman



The son of the only Newman brother NOT to be a composer (his father was an internist), Randy Newman is arguably the most famous of the Newman musical family, but more for his song writing skills than his film music. Born in Los Angeles but raised in New Orleans, Randy was a talented pianist from an early age, and always seemed destined for a career in music, but during his formative years purposefully stayed away from Hollywood and concentrated on being a recording artist in his own right.

With his regular collaborator Lenny Waronker, Newman recorded and released many popular hit records, including "I Love L.A.", "Short People", "Political Science", "Marie", "I Think It's Going To Rain Today", "You Can Leave Your Hat On" and the controversial "Rednecks". His solo albums ("Randy Newman", "Sail Away", "Good Old Boys", "Little Criminals", "Born Again", "Trouble In Paradise", "Land of Dreams", "Faust", "Bad Love" and "Harps and Angels"), have all received critical acclaim for the way in which his sardonic, witty lyrics and totally unique vocal delivery allowed his songs to be entertaining, musically excellent, but yet remain politically and socially aware.

Newman is generally considered to be among the greatest living American songwriters, with a legion of dedicated followers. After contributing music to the 1971 movie Cold Turkey, Newman formally entered the film music fray in 1981 with the score for Milos Forman's Ragtime, for which he received the first of his 20 Oscar nominations. Since then, Newman's film music output has been small but of consistently high quality, and has included works such as:


 * Performance (1970)
 * Cold Turkey (1971)
 * The Natural (1984),
 * ¡Three Amigos! (1986) (songs: "The Ballad of the Three Amigos," "My Little Buttercup," and "Blue Shadows")
 * Parenthood (1989),
 * Awakenings (1990),
 * Avalon (1990)
 * The Paper (1994)
 * Maverick (1994)
 * Toy Story (1995),
 * James and the Giant Peach (1996)
 * Michael (1996),
 * Cats Don't Dance (1997),
 * A Bugs Life (1998),
 * Babe: Pig in the City (1998) (song: "That'll Do" by Peter Gabriel)
 * Pleasantville (1998)
 * Toy Story 2 (1999),
 * Meet the Parents (2000)
 * Monsters, Inc. (2001)
 * Seabiscuit (2003)
 * Meet the Fockers (2004)
 * Cars (2006)
 * Leatherheads (2008)
 * The Princess and the Frog (2009)
 * Toy Story 3 (2010)

Most of these scores in the list were Oscar nominated for either the score or one of his brilliant songs. He finally won his first Oscar, in 2001, for the song 'If I Didn't Have You' from "Monsters, Inc." He won his second Oscar in 2011, for the song, "We Belong Together" from "Toy Story 3."

In 2003, he wrote and sung the Emmy Award-winning theme song for Monk, used from its second season onwards, titled "It's a Jungle Out There". In 2009, he returned to write and sing the closing song to the entire series, "When I'm Gone", and won that Emmy too.

Ever the innovator, Newman was involved with the South Coast Repertory Theater's production of The Education of Randy Newman, a musical stage play based on Newman's life set to his songs. The play, which stars Scott Waara as Newman and is directed by Myron Johnson, premiered in Costa Mesa, Los Angeles on 2 June 2000. The Randy Newman Songbook, Vol. I (2003), his first effort for Nonesuch, introduces powerful new solo versions of early classics and recent gems alike. The eighteen songs are an intimate and powerful reminder of the enduring work that Newman has established. In 2008 he released Harps and Angels for Nonesuch records, his first collection of new songs since 2009’s Bad Love.

Most recently, Newman wrote the songs and score for Disney's The Princess and the Frog as well as Toy Story 3. He has earned two more Academy Award nominations (19 total) in the Best Original Song category for Almost There and Down In New Orleans. On June 2nd 2010 Newman received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

""Cleveland, city of light! City of magic!""
 * A Man Is Not a Virgin: Mocked in "The Women In My Life".
 * Cleveland Rocks: "Burn On", about the Cuyahoga River's unfortunate tendency to catch on fire.

""Never in my life have I heard so much bullshit/even from you/the master of bullshit!""
 * Dying Town: Another favorite theme, ranging from the sarcastic (the aforementioned "Burn On") to the tragic ("Baltimore").
 * God Is At Least A Little Sadistic: "God's Song (That's Why I Love Mankind)" depicts a God who is completely unsympathetic to mankind's suffering due to the atrocities we visit upon one another, and does nothing to help. The refrain "That's why I love mankind" is no doubt intended facetiously, although it's possible the entire song is facetious. May also be considered to be a Religion Rant Song.
 * Gospel Revival Number: The opening number of "Faust", "Glory Train". Heavily subverted in that the Devil breaks in occasionally with remarks like:

"He said, "They found out about my sister/Kicked me out of the Navy/They would have strung me up if they could/I tried to explain that we were both of us lazy/And were doing the best we could.""
 * Heroes Want Redheads: Subverted; at least a couple of songs are about an innocent redheaded girl being taken advantage of by the narrator.
 * Incest Is Relative: Implied in the lyrics of "Naked Man":


 * Isn't It Ironic? (see below)
 * Long Runner -- four decades of music, and still going.
 * Lyrical Dissonance: One of Newman's favorite tactics. "Sail Away" is a quiet, gentle song...until you realize it's written from the perspective of a slave ship owner pitching the natives on what a great life they're going to have. "Little Criminals" seems to be a case of Badass Boast...until you realize just how much the narrator and his crew live up to the song's title.
 * Naked People Are Funny: "Naked Man", written about an infamous purse-snatching streaker in the 1970s.
 * Nuke'Em: "Political Science", sometimes incorrectly known by its refrain of "Let's drop the big one now."
 * One-Woman Song: "Kathleen", "Marie", "Suzanne", "Lucinda"...notable in that almost all of them are subversions of the typical love song.
 * Oscar Bait -- straight and subverted
 * Poe's Law: Newman wrote "Short People" to make fun of the mindset that discriminates against people for their appearance. He was promptly accused of being bigoted against short people. Also happened to him with "Rednecks", when people missed the satire and actually thought he was serious.
 * Really, you'd think the line "We don't know our ass from a hole in the ground" would be a dead giveaway.
 * Sympathy for the Devil: "Rednecks" actually was intended to display a back-handed sort of sympathy for southern racists, specifically speaking out against northern liberals' tendency to mock them dismissively rather than argue with them on the merits (an argument Newman obviously believed the northerners would win handily).
 * "In Germany Before the War" is a more subtle case: it's written from the perspective of Peter Kurten, aka "The Vampire of Dusseldorf".
 * In the recording of "Faust" released on CD, Newman voices the Devil, who tends to be the voice of reason during the production.
 * Take That: "Mr. President, Have Pity On The Working Man", probably his bitterest song. Arguably the entire score of "Faust", as well, at least to fundamentalists.
 * His 1979 album Born Again has two examples aimed at other musicians. On the cover, he's wearing KISS-like makeup, and the song "The Story of a Rock and Roll Band" is a parody of Electric Light Orchestra.
 * Unreliable Narrator: Another of his favorite lyrical devices; as a general rule, whoever the song is from the perspective of is not somebody you should trust. About anything.
 * Villain Song: "Friends on the Other Side" from The Princess and the Frog. Also a common trope in his non-movie work: "Kathleen" is from the perspective of a man tricking a woman into thinking they're married to get in her pants; the subtitle (Catholicism Made Easier) got Newman into a LOT of trouble.