Hachette
Review by George Yatchisin
A tunesmith with a con, not a song, in his heart, Randy Newman is a quintessential American composer. And like America, what a bill of goods Newman sells us: racist rednecks and drop-the-bomb political science, feel my pain anthems and a testy Old Testament God.
He gets away with singing from the viewpoint of these twisted characters for a slew of reasons. Despite a fiercely appreciative fan base, he’s never been able to sell himself; flying outside the radar of Top 40 has freed him from attacks from the irony-impaired, except for his one hit, an infamy that was, uh, short-lived. (His best known song, “You’ve Got a Friend in Me,” beloved heart of the Toy Story films, never got released as a single, fyi.)
But those who are in the know get to know people they might never have otherwise. His lyrics, despite the humor that mostly means we laugh ’cause we don’t know what else to do while squirming, give voice to those we’d rather not hear from, like the sweet promises of the slave trader in “Sail Away,” the N-word dropping titular Southerner in “Rednecks.” But the true dignity these characters get are from the tunes. From a family of film composers, and multiply nominated for Oscars himself, Newman invests a cinematic quality to his melodies, providing each song with a kind of back-story.
A Few Words in Defense of Our Country, Robert Hilburn’s new bio of Newman, means to make the case for Newman as one of the great artists of our time. Throughout the book he interpolates encomiums from esteemed figures, and he kicks that off with none other than Dylan himself (he’s a Nobel Prize winner, you know). Hilburn is not here to bury Newman but to praise him, setting up with his prologues a two-pronged attack—Newman as prescient, penetrating American Jeremiah, sagely realizing the root of our national original sin is racism, and Newman as brilliantly funny.
Hilburn, chief pop music critic of the Los Angeles Times for 25 years, has also written biographies of Johnny Cash, Paul Simon, and Bruce Springsteen, and clearly knows how to dig out great quotes and put even his chief asset, Newman, at ease (they did extensive interviews for the book). The inside look at Newman’s life includes the importance of his keen lifetime friendship with Lenny Warokner, who would go on to be one of the biggest music moguls in L.A., and Newman’s anxiety about following in the baton-waving tradition of his uncles, who over their lives earned 92 Oscar nominations for film scoring. In fact, that’s why Randy decided to write “pop” music, so as not to feel that comparative burden.
Fortunately he learned early—partially thanks to a childhood love of Ray Charles—that it was fun to muddle genres. He also, thanks to Waronker, got to spend formative time at Liberty Records, a lower scale, west coast version of the Brill Building, to hone his songwriting chops as a young man. Hilburn does a wonderful job creating this rich milieu of commerce/creativity.
Wisely, Hilburn also quotes many of the songs, often in full, to be sure we can see Newman’s wit. Even the book’s title is from a Newman song in which he lambastes George W. Bush and the 2008 Supreme Court (oh how he must lament our current version).
But then there are just all the great nuggets Hilburn uncovers: “I Love L.A.” began as a far different tune with the scratch title “A Big Smelly Country Song;” famed session drummer and frequent Newman collaborator Jim Keltner admits when he records with Newman he can’t listen to the lyrics as he ends up laughing and blows the takes; shy, Newman jumped into a swimming pool fully clothed to draw the attention of Roswitha Schmale, who would become his first wife. Hilburn will be sure to tell you where each of Newman’s albums ranked in the esteemed Village Voice Pazz & Jop polls, how much money the films he wrote soundtracks for made at the box office. Chockablock with fascinating facts, anecdotes, and minutiae, A Few Words is actually quite many. Hilburn is a reporter, after all.
Which might lead to the slight weakness of the book. For all its breadth—the end even includes mini “where are they now?” scenarios for his five children—it lacks a kick into critical overdrive. Hilburn does lean on some big thinkers for that—Nelson George and Robert Christgau and Greil Marcus are quoted at length—but in some ways bringing their cerebral approach in doesn’t do him any favors by comparison.
Still, A Few Words in Defense of Our Country does definitively capture a sardonic genius at work. After all, Newman wants us to hurt like he does (as one song puts it). If he’s truly Guilty, as the title of his 1998 retrospective box set suggests, we’re all accomplices, suckered by all the useless beauty of a piano that adds ragtime to a voice that adds blues to a sensibility blunt as a country that would like to offer as its cultural contribution a music it stole from the people it brought here as slaves.
