Randy Newman has been away for awhile, and right when the country needed him most.
His last album of original songs, Bad Love, was released in 1999. And so the first decade of the 21st century had thus far gone unchronicled by America’s finest musical satirist. That is truly a shame, because George Bush has certainly deserved an earful.
He finally gets it in the centerpiece song of Newman’s excellent new album Harps and Angels. That song is ‘A Few Words in Defense of Our Country’ and anyone who knows Randy Newman knows defense isn’t what’s really on his mind.
Whose people aren’t bad nor are they mean
Now the leaders we have
While they’re the worst that we’ve had
Are hardly the worst the poor world has seen
The lyrics (so good they were printed as an op ed piece in The New York Times) go on to detail other atrocities in world history to which the Bush administration can be favorably compared. Newman name-drops Hitler and Stalin (“men who need no introduction” – ha!) and the Caesars. He gets in a good dig at Dick Cheney and reserves a whole wonderful verse for the Supreme Court:
That this Supreme Court is going to outlive me
A couple of young Italian fellas and a brother on the Court now, too
But I defy you, anywhere in the world,
To find me two Italians as tight-assed as the two Italians we got
And as for the brother, well
Pluto’s not a planet anymore, either
And so on. It’s a brilliant piece of work, up there with some of his great 70s material.
The rest of the album is very solid as well. Other highlights are two more mini-epics performed in the same smart-ass talking blues style as that one (‘Harps and Angels’ and ‘Potholes’) plus a couple of straight-forward love songs (‘Losing You’ and ‘Feels Like Home’). It’s impressive that Newman can deliver the earnest stuff with as much conviction as the satire.
The album coasts a bit in its middle third, featuring a couple of New Orleans jazz ditties and a funny freak-out that takes light-hearted shots at Jackson Browne, John Mellencamp and Bono. The one weak song is ‘Korean Parents’ which makes some smart points about the American public school system but feels a bit too jokey.
But make no mistake, this is another essential recording from a man who far too seldom asks for our ear. This blog has seen some discussion lately about “original voices” — it’s great to once again hear from an artist who is truly one of a kind.
I’m enjoying the hell out of this new album as well, and pretty much agree with your assessment. For some reason, Newman always has one musically assautling dissonent song on his records and Korean Parent is it on this one, although the lyrics are still pretty great.
Newman is still on top of his game!