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The Official Randy Newman Thread


Disco Stu

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Thanks for the interview!

 

I used to really dislike Randy Newman back in the day. Didn't care for his quirky songs, and I thought he was a 'one trick pony' as a film composer -- always churning out the same raw Americana and folksy, simplistic melodies. Well, I've come to embrace this particular sound of his in later years. True, he doesn't have the range as other composers, but what he does, he does so very well. So I've grown very fond of quite a bit of his film work. I think my favourite remains THE NATURAL.

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The only cue I can find from his very first film score, Cold Turkey

 

 

This film also has the first appearance of his "He Gives Us All His Love" over the main title.  The song later appeared on his 1972 masterpiece pop album, Sail Away.

 

 

 

7 minutes ago, Thor said:

I think my favourite remains THE NATURAL.

 

Pleasantville for me.

 

His true genius lies in his pop music, but I love many of his film scores.

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7 minutes ago, Steve McQueen said:

I like his Pixar scores, especially Cars.

His song Its Money That Matters is a (not) guilty pleasure.

 

 

Probably my least favorite of his pop albums, but I still have a lot of love for it.  Randy's best if he mostly ignores pop production trends, and that's his most "of its time" sounding album.  It certainly has nothing up to the par of his first 4 or 5 albums, which are the foundation of his reputation.

 

I have some affection for "Falling in Love" a very simple but irresistible little love song he recorded with Jeff Lynne and Tom Petty.

 

 

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I saw this linked earlier today on my way to work and had completely forgotten about it already. Thanks for posting it, Disco. Will watch.

 

In the meantime, I still think Faust might be his magnum opus:

 

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Randy actually says nothing has given him greater professional pride than being appreciated by the LA session musicians.

 

Of course he has been surrounded by them since he was a small boy with his musical family.  Makes sense.

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5 hours ago, Alexcremers said:

Of Randy Newman I have 

 

Ragtime

The Natural

Avalon

Awakenings

Pleasantville

 

 

Then he became a composer for cartoons ... Sigh ...

 

No Seabiscuit?  It's his last dramatic score at this point (20 minutes of piano noodling for The Meyerowitz Stories doesn't count) and it's pretty good!  Not as great as Pleasantville, his previous collaboration with the director, but still pretty good.  Although, as he mentions in the interview, he had severe disagreements with the director and William Ross wrote two cues as a consequence of that.

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  • 9 months later...

I thought those sketches were funny when I first saw them, but now I think they actively detract from his legacy as a true songwriting genius.  It'd be one thing if people of my generation widely recognized him as such, but for many the Family Guy bit is the main thing they seem to know about him.

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The Family Guy one is funny but not especially apt.  He's an incredibly precise lyricist, his songs are often very short because of how good he is at communicating in few words

 

Like in "Old Man" in under 3 minutes he communicates what seems like 100 different conflicting emotions of a son saying goodbye to his dying father.

 

Quote

Everyone has gone away
Can you hear me? Can you hear me?
No one cared enough to stay
Can you hear me? Can you hear me?
You must remember me old man
I know that you can if you try
So just open up your eyes, old man
Look who's come to say goodbye

 

The sun has left the sky, old man
The birds have flown away
And no one came to cry, old man
Goodbye, old man, goodbye
You want to stay, I know you do
But it ain't no use to try
'Cause I'll be here and I'm just like you
Goodbye, old man, goodbye

Won't be no God to comfort you
You taught me not to believe that lie
You don't need anybody, nobody needs you
Don't cry, old man, don't cry
Everybody dies

 

 

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  • 9 months later...

I just read a neat little story by the rock critic Robert Christgau about his personal dealings with Randy Newman.  In particular I was amused that Randy thinks Kanye West's album "My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy" is a masterpiece.  Agree with that or not, credit Randy with having an open mind about current pop music into his 70s, not something everyone manages to do.

 

Here's the excerpt, along with a typical Randy observation about how rock music changed everything in the 50s.

Quote

I was nonetheless astonished when [Randy Newman] phoned me out of the blue in 2014, or did he maybe email me first? Anyway, that was in June—he told me how much he liked my criticism and credited me in particular with having opened him up to My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, a masterpiece [according to] him. Then when he was in NYC in October he invited me to a rehearsal and a concert and then set up a lunch at a Japanese place where he ordered the best sashimi. We had a great conversation about all kinds of things including family and got along very well... The big thing I remember him saying was how the whole semi-classical Tin Pan Alley palette—which he knows well because it’s in his blood with two uncles big-time Hollywood composers as he now is as well—was blown away by four chords circa 1954.

 

Oh yeah, and I figure that Randy's tossed off song about social distancing during the pandemic should be posted in this thread as well

 

 

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  • 1 year later...

I just love this gorgeous theme that Randy wrote for Toy Story 4 wrote for Toy Story 2 and used extensively in 4.  It's so delicate and heartbreaking in that way only Randy can do, going all the way back to 60s/70s songs like "I Think It's Going to Rain Today" and "Marie".  "Parting Gifts and New Horizons" has got to be one of the best score cues of the last 5 years.

 

3:40 - 4:20

 

0:35 - 1:10

 

0:56

 

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What a great funny music video.  He wrote the song for a Tom Selleck movie and then opens the video very meta about how he has to write a song for the movie.  The girl asks "What's the matter?  Phil Collins busy?" :lol:

 

@SteveMc I trust you have seen this video before?

 

 

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  • 3 weeks later...
On 4/27/2021 at 9:18 AM, Disco Stu said:

I just love this gorgeous theme that Randy wrote for Toy Story 4.  It's so delicate and heartbreaking in that way only Randy can do, going all the way back to 60s/70s songs like "I Think It's Going to Rain Today" and "Marie".  "Parting Gifts and New Horizons" has got to be one of the best score cues of the last 5 years.

 

3:40 - 4:20

 

0:35 - 1:10

 

0:56

 

 

I definitely forgot that this theme had been originally written for a cue  in Toy Story 2 and re-used for a cue in Toy Story 3.  In my defense, those cues were inexplicably left off of their respective OSTs!  Funny that it became like THE central emotional theme of the fourth one.

 

I won't hold it against Randy, it's a fantastic melody.

 

 

 

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On 8/21/2018 at 9:01 AM, Thor said:

Thanks for the interview!

 

I used to really dislike Randy Newman back in the day. Didn't care for his quirky songs, and I thought he was a 'one trick pony' as a film composer -- always churning out the same raw Americana and folksy, simplistic melodies. Well, I've come to embrace this particular sound of his in later years. True, he doesn't have the range as other composers, but what he does, he does so very well. So I've grown very fond of quite a bit of his film work. I think my favourite remains THE NATURAL.

One of the all-time great scores

But....

You have to see the film also or its power is lost!

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4 hours ago, Disco Stu said:

I definitely forgot that this theme had been originally written for a cue  in Toy Story 2 and re-used for a cue in Toy Story 3.  In my defense, those cues were inexplicably left off of their respective OSTs!  Funny that it became like THE central emotional theme of the fourth one.

 

I won't hold it against Randy, it's a fantastic melody.

 

 

 

 

Those first three phrases always make me wanna start singing "Part of Your World"

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  • 9 months later...

Whoa!  I'm glad he's doing ok.  I had definitely noticed how much more hunched over he had gotten in the last couple of years.  I assumed he was just developing a humped back in his old age.

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Man, that headline gave me quite a scare!

 

I like this quote, though:

Quote

“Recently, I noticed I was shrinking,” Newman writes. “People over whom I had towered now towered over me. Could this be payback for having written Short People? Turns out, my neck was broken.

“They operated on me successfully, I think,” he continues. “For even now, I look less like an anteater and more like a folk rock artist from the early sixties. But the doctor said I’m not quite ready to tour. I was really looking forward to coming to Europe to perform. I miss performing a great deal and I look forward to a time when I can come. I’m sorry I won’t see you this time but I will see you soon.”

 

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2 minutes ago, Disco Stu said:

Whoa!  I'm glad he's doing ok.  I had definitely noticed how much more hunched over he had gotten in the last couple of years.  I assumed he was just developing a humped back in his old age.

 

I've been long wondering about his health because of it. Rather relieved to hear it's "just" a broken neck.

 

I read the statement earlier today. It's easily the funniest concert tour postponement announcement I've ever read.

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3 hours ago, AC1 said:

Don't people die in movies when someone snaps their neck?

I thought so too, but my great-grandma fell and broke her neck at the age of 104 and she recovered just fine. I thought a broken neck meant instant death up to that point.

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  • 10 months later...

http://www.randynewman.com/2023/01/spring-2023-european-tour-postponement/

 

Bad news... he is still recovering from surgery so has had to further postpone his tour. Had tickets for the Palladium in London on 15 February 2023 and hope he recovers well enough to come back another time. Get well soon Randy!

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  • 4 weeks later...

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