And now for something completely different. I’ll back off the country for a bit here and turn my attention to a New Orleans jazz man… the fabulous Randy Newman.
Any legitimate list of great songwriters would have to have Randy Newman right up near the top not only for his excellence but for his versatility. This is a man who has written chart-topping pop songs for Dusty Springfield and Three Dog Night, music both fun and touching for children’s movies from Toy Story to The Princess and the Frog, biting satire about religion and politics and incredibly heartfelt love songs. Most songwriters would kill to be able to do just one of those things well.
And then there’s a song like ‘Shame,’ featured on his great 1999 album, Bad Love. This song belongs to a genre that is Newman’s alone, a sort of talking blues New Orleans jazz bitter monologue. It’s certainly the only song I can think of in which the performer tells his backup singers to shut up.
Newman paints a wonderful portrait of an old guy with a hot young girl who’s finally left him. This isn’t a sympathetic character, and Newman doesn’t play him for sympathy at all, but you come to understand him and even like him. It’s all about the delivery. For having such a limited vocal range, Newman is an expert vocalist… he teases the humor and pathos out of every line he speaks or sings.
And what marvelous writing… a line like “an old guy banging on her like a gypsy on a tambourine” should be used to teach similes to grade-schoolers. OK, maybe high schoolers.
How come you never come around?
Pretty little baby
How come you never come around?
I send you all them pretty flowers
Now you’re nowhere to be found
Call you up at midnight sometimes, I must admit
When I find you’re not at home
My head heats up like a furnace
My heart grows colder than a stone
So what’s the good of all this money I got, girl
If every night I’m left here all alone?
It’s a gun that I need
Shame, shame, shame, shame, shame
I ain’t ashamed of nothing
Shame, shame, shame, shame, shame
I don’t know what you talking about
All right, let’s talk a little business
You know what I’m saying?
A man of my experience of life
Don’t expect a beautiful young woman like yourself
To come on over here everyday
Have some old dude bangin’ on her
Like a gypsy on a tambourine
That’s not what I’m talkin’ ‘bout
That’s not what I’m talkin’ ‘bout
That’s not what I’m talkin’ ‘bout
But I will say this
I’ve been all over the world.
I’ve seen some wonderful things
I haven’t been well lately
I have no one to share my plans
My dreams, my hopes, my schemes, my…
Shame, shame, shame, shame, shame.
Could be right
I’ve sunk pretty low this time
Shame, shame, shame, shame, shame
These are truly desperate times
Saw your little sandals, baby
Out behind the wishing well
Down here in the cool depths of the Quarter
Where the rich folk dwell
They picture you in diamonds, satins and pearls
Come on back to Daddy
Daddy miss his little baby girl
Now, my father, he was an angry man
You crossed him, he made you pay
I, myself, am no longer an angry man
But don’t make me beg you, don’t make me beg
Do you know what it feels like
Wake up in the mornin’
Have every joint in your body aching, goddamit?
You know what it feels like
Have to get up in the middle of the night
And sit down, to take a piss?
You do know? So you say
I have my doubts missy
Do you know what it feels like
To have to beg a little bum like you for love?
Goddamn you, you little bitch!
I’d kill you, if I didn’t love you so much!
Shame, shame, shame, shame…
SHUT UP!
Oh, forgive me
My unfocused words
I was flyin’ blind, I, I lost my mind
If ya can find it in your heart, if you got one
To forgive me. Be ever so grateful to you.
Shame, shame, shame.
Would you stop that please?
Shame, shame, shame.
Would you stop that please?
I’m trying to talk to someone.
Shame.
Thank you.
You know, I have a Lexus now.
I don’t get out much.
You know what I’m saying.
Come on home.
Meet Me In Montauk 
As I was reading these lyrics just now – before starting the song – I had the strangest thought. Ready?
Eminem.
I doubt the man had ever heard Newman’s music when he was starting out, though I certainly hope he’s heard it by now. Still, there’s something about the way this character talks (even before the most obvious “Goddamn you, you little bitch/ I’d kill you, if I didn’t love you so much! line) that could make it the predecessor to so many of his rap songs.
That odd thought aside, I love when Newman sings songs such as these, though I don’t tend to listen to them as background music. I pick up a Newman CD when I’m in the mood to really listen – and concentrate on – one of his songs.
Yeah, I could totally see these being the lyrics to an Eminem song. That’s a cover version I’d love to hear.
Interesting correlation between Newman and Eminem. They certainly have in common great lyrics with well defined characters. And both create characters who are not quite them, but probably represent a sufficient part of their personality such that the casual listener might ascribe these traits to the artist.
I love this song, and this album. Newman is slow to release new records, but I wait eagerly for each one.
He’s not talking to the background singers. Look a little deeper.
He is talking to his background singers, but the question is who/what they represent. His conscience, perhaps?
It’s another character in the song he’s talking to—a shadow character. More proof, if we needed it, that Randy is a very subtle writer. This narrator is a wealthy old white dude talking on the phone to his trophy girlfriend who has been ignoring him. “How come you never come around?” He lives in the Quarter. He’s a buffoon, and a self obsessed one. As a wealthy, white, impervious, entitled guy (who’s angry father is another shadow character) one must ask, who else might be in the room with him, overhearing this private conversation? It can only be someone he’s so used to that he doesn’t even edit himself or his phone conversations when she’s around. Someone so insignificant to him that when she mutters “shame” he only vaguely responds to her at first. “I ain’t ‘shamed of nothing.” And, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” She becomes embarrassed for him, and the next “Shame…” is her admonishment to him for abasing himself; she attempts to protect him from making a further fool of himself. She is used to taking care of him. “You could be right,” he admits. “I’ve sunk pretty low this time.” But he gets angry—like his father—further into the phone conversation and berates the girlfriend in foul language, prompting another, more forceful “Shame…” from our character, the moral center of the song. Angrily, old white dude tells her to “Shut up!” She complies briefly, but she continues clucking away in the background shaming him in a way that only she can. Her position as a domestic, likely one who has known him since he was a child, gives her immunity to comment, correct, and yes, shame the narrator. “Will you stop that please?” he asks. “I’m trying to talk to someone.” She complies this time and he thanks her, somewhat absently, but returns to the phone call and continues to try to cajole the disinterested girl on the other end of the line, while “the help” disappears into the background, out of sight, invisible, unnoticed…as usual.