Randy Newman's not the most prolific songwriter, but when he does deign to release a new record, it's because he's got something to say. Harps and Angels is full of the satirical barbs and critical observations Newman fans have come to expect, from the pre-post-racial narrative of "Korean Parents" to "A Piece of the Pie", which invokes his fellow pop stars-- Newman's not afraid to name names-- as a means of illustrating the death of the American dream. Of course, in conversation, Newman is just as likely to expound on the commercial appeal of Poison power ballads, Alvin and the Chipmunks, and jai alai ("jai alai players have really big right arms, and really little left arms"), but he's not above talking about his music, too.
Pitchfork: I assume you're out in sunny Los Angeles.
Randy Newman: It isn't sunny, actually. We're all real depressed. Everyone's outside, worried.
Pitchfork: You waited nine years between records.
RN: That's a good way to put it.
Pitchfork: Why the rush?
RN: Well, I should have done more work in that area. If I'm going to be remembered for anything, it's that. Of course, I don't care if I'm remembered. But people who like [my work] wish that I had done more. I did a lot of pictures in that time, though, so I was busy with other things. When you don't write for a while, and then you go back to it-- it's goddamn hard! It's harder. It's hard at all times, I think. But staying away a while makes it harder.
Pitchfork: Well, doesn't the word "write" have its roots in the word "tear," something very physical?
RN: Well, yeah. But I still spent a lot of time lying around watching television, too. I was reading a book by Simon Schama, the historian. I found this book on the shelf I had barely heard of, so I got a bunch of his books, and I can't understand how he has the time. Does he have researchers? A History of Britain, Rough Crossings, something about Holland [The Embarassment of Riches: An Interpretation of Dutch Culture in the Golden Age --Ed.]... incredible!
Pitchfork: Is it a different discipline for you when you sit down to write your own music, as opposed to being hired to write music?
RN: Yeah. The easiest thing I do is assignment songs. They tell me what they need me to write. I can do that fairly quickly. Writing for an orchestra is difficult. Writing songs [on your own] is most difficult of all. Though [writing for] the orchestra is close.
Pitchfork: One of the more interesting aspects of your career is that you've avoided churning out an album every year, which I think has helped you avoid getting tagged as a novelty, for lack of a better word. You're not just writing off the headlines.
RN: Don Henley is always teasing me, asking if I've written another little novelty song. The fact is, what people like are the love songs. No doubt about it. Their favorite song on this new record is "Feels Like Home". I like it, but it's a fairly generic love song. Other people write 'em. But some of the stuff, no one else is doing-- maybe for good reason! But that stuff is more interesting, the Jackson Browne song ["A Piece of the Pie"], or "Korean Parents", "Harps and Angels". But "Feels Like Home" still goes some nice places, I think. And people really like it.
Pitchfork: Not that I would ever resort to calling you a cynic, but how do you remain authentic to the song when you know there are certain beats, certain melodies that will move people automatically?
RN: I don't really know that. After this experience, after this "Feels Like Home" thing, I know it a little more, but I can't do it automatically. I sort of can't help what I write. If I like it, I'm just so glad that I've got something that I can fill 28 seconds with. I'll take it. But I don't know anything about touching people automatically.
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Pitchfork:__ I just read the Warren Zevon oral history, and your name pops up a couple of times in passing as a sort of elusive gold standard.
RN: That's nice of him to say. He was his own fella. He did just fine with his writing. Writers have always liked my stuff, pretty much. That's what I wanted-- I think my goal wasn't to get rich and famous, necessarily, though I cared about that. I always thought, "Oh, this could be a hit," or "that will sell records." But the first thing I wanted was that people who knew a lot about music, or had taste-making qualities, they would like my stuff. Writers, people like that. And I kind of got it, and realized, I want more! [laughs] It's always gratifying to me when someone like Elvis Costello mentions me, someone whose work I admire.
Pitchfork: Thanks to the Disney movies, probably more people have heard you than ever before, but maybe fewer people have heard of you.
RN: I think that's probably true, though it's probably narrowing the "heard of you" now with this record. But it'll never touch Toy Story or A Bug's Life, where I'm essentially anonymous. That's in every home with a little kid, and it'll be there for years. But you're right-- they've heard me, but it's like hearing an oboe player who plays on every music session.
Pitchfork: Does that anonymity free you at all?
RN: You know, maybe it has, yeah. That's a good question. I think if I had more success it might have pressured me out of writing just whatever I wanted to write-- I don't have that strong a character. But when I did Born Again, that was after I did "Short People", which was a hit but a novelty hit. And Born Again, just looking at the cover, seems like a reaction to that, presuming that people would know I'm not just some asshole with makeup on. They'll know who I am. Which was a mistake-- they don't know who I am. That's the weirdest album I ever made.
Pitchfork: Your weirdest album came right after your weirdest success story.
RN: "Short People"? Yeah. I must have thought... you'd rather have a hit. But "Short People" was the worst kind of hit to have. If you can have a bad hit, that would be one of them. It was like "Witch Doctor" by Alvin and the Chipmunks.
Pitchfork: But David Seville did a lot of strange songs besides that one.
RN: He did. I knew him! Ross Bagdasarian. Yeah, [legendary Warner Bros. exec] Lenny Waronker's father started Liberty records, and Bagdasarian saved him from bankruptcy. Lenny's father's name was Simon. They named the Chipmunks after executives at Liberty-- Simon, Alvin [Bennett], and Theodore [Keep].
Pitchfork: The times I've seen you perform live, I've been struck by the economy of your lyrics, but people tend to equate intelligence with wordiness.
RN: I don't. I mean, I think in most cases, unless you're writing about a character who is garrulous, you say what you've got to say and then get out. Those little conjunctions, those little turnaround words help you do it. That's the way I like to write: I get rid of things rather than add them.
Pitchfork: Do many of your songs begin bigger than they end up?
RN: I wouldn't say many, but there's always a few. I'll cut down the verse or... some of these songs I kept thinking about, like there was something wrong with them. I tried to get rid of that John Mellencamp line first [in "A Piece of the Pie"], but I liked that first line so much-- "There's a famous saying someone famous said"-- I liked that so I kept it. I could have then gone, "As General Motors goes, so goes we all, the company's so sick now it's almost dead." And I never got it to where I thought it was a really great chorus, but that chorus, when I thought of that-- "That's not true, John's a patriot" and all that stuff-- it sort of made it OK. But I never liked that verse much.
Pitchfork: And now you have to live with it forever.
RN: Yeah. It sounds like I'm praising Jackson Browne and slamming Mellencamp, which is not what I'm doing.
Pitchfork: Do you feel a certain rueful satisfaction when you write a song like "Political Science" that remains trenchant so many years later?
RN: It's a surprise that I'll play songs that-- of course, I'm playing to the choir. That they've lasted this long, no one would have had any idea. I mean, you could tell the Beatles stuff would last. But "Political Science", there's always been that strain in the country. It's sometimes more predominant than it is other times. Now it's to the point where they don't laugh at it.
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Pitchfork:__ It's ironic that we're a couple of decades past the end of the Cold War, and yet in a lot of ways the prospect of nuclear annihilation seems closer than ever.
RN: Yeah, it's a little surprising. But when you think about it, historically, when the lid comes off, when Tito goes to Yugoslavia, boom, they go to war. Their 700-year-old feuds flare. That's what happens. You get rid of the Shah... well, you don't get rid of him but you remove him, and then all the old discontents rise to the surface when there isn't somebody sitting on them.
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Pitchfork:__ The last few years have been so ridiculous it's gone way past funny, to the point that you can't laugh at it.
RN: It's surreal. They actually outed a CIA agent, a government official-- imagine if a Democrat had done that! They'd go to prison forever. What's unbelievable is that the polls are close.
Pitchfork: It's hard to laugh at the prospect of something so bad so close to reality.
RN: It really is. And the racial component is much greater than the polls would indicate. And the interesting thing, this is the best country in the world for that. In England, in France, in no other country would a black man have a chance to get elected. There's no two ways about it. Our country's been better about dealing with immigration and people who are different from each other than any other country in the world, that I know of. So we've got that. So, what the hell. You know, you end up having these conversations, but I always hate it when a celebrity or show-biz people start talking about politics. Yet one of the things I resent about this administration is that they almost force you to. It's so blatant and right in your face.
Pitchfork: Yeah. I mean, how many years-- literally, years-- has it been since they've shown a flag-draped coffin?
RN: I know! I hadn't even thought of that. Again, it's unbelievable.
Pitchfork: You're one of a very few songwriters to implicitly or explicitly address race or race relations in your music.
RN: Over and over. That's why they've improved so much. It's like I wrote in that song ["A Piece of the Pie"], only Jackson Browne has stayed interested. Really, all that fervor and good will of the late 1960s and early 70s, it went away. Things were left to remain the same. My kids just went to a camp where they worked with Hispanic and African-American kids in shelters. I mean, they come from another world. It was a fantastic experience, but, boy, their experiences were very different. And the black kids had it worse than the Hispanic kids. A lot of the Hispanic kids had cohesive families, at least a little bit. The black kids didn't. It's the saddest thing going. But people get so scared. When the Republicans say the Democrats are going to tax and spend... I mean, things look shitty! I don't know about where you are, but the roads are shitty, the schools are shitty....
Pitchfork: Oh, it's pretty shitty everywhere.
RN: It's because we're not taxed like other Western countries are. They lowered my taxes! How can a country countenance lowering taxes on the upper income? I can't believe it!
