Here’s a track from Randy Newman’s most recent album, 2017’s Dark Matter. The fact that this is the first time a song from the album has appeared on the blog since its release says a lot.
Newman is notoriously slow when it comes to releasing new albums (in part because he spends a lot of time on movie scores). Dark Matter was only his fifth studio album release in the more than four decades following a rather prolific run in the 70s.
When I wrote about the album five years ago, I was disappointed in the bulk of the record and hoped Newman would deliver a follow-up more quickly than usual. Didn’t happen.
Today’s song is a good example of why Dark Matter was so uninspiring. It’s a nice enough tune, but Newman has written so many better songs in this vein that it’s hard to imagine I’d even need to hear this one again.
And I know how I look
What I know about life
Comes out of a book
But of all of the people
There are in the world
She chose me
Most of my life
Been on my own
Whatever I did
I did it alone
And then she came along
Now I’m not alone
Since she chose me
Every night I thank the lucky stars above me
That someone as beautiful as she could really love me
And she really loves me
From time to time
I ask myself
Why was it I
And nobody else?
The most beautiful girl
That I’d ever seen
And she chose me
And she really loves me
From time to time
I ask myself
Why was it I
And nobody else?
The most beautiful girl
In all of the world
And she chose me
Meet Me In Montauk 
I think this is actually quite a lovely song, though it does pale in comparison to similarly styled songs like “When She Loved Me” and “Feels Like Home.” I too, however, have not returned to this album, though that’s not unusual for me.
Dana was commenting yesterday that Billy Joel may have had the right idea to stop putting out new music, allowing his career to be defined by what he had already done and continuing to tour performing those great songs. It may have been an unusual decision, but at least we haven’t had to ignore decades of mediocre releases.