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He's an unusually gifted songwriter and lyricist. Randy Newman made lots of interesting records over the years, and made many dollars writing songs for others, as well as thirty-one movie soundtracks. These two, made twenty-seven years apart, are his finest.
Sail Away opens with the title track, which Newman described as "a commercial jingle written for slave traders looking to recruit naive Africans", a beautiful delivery of very dark satire. Lonely At The Top outlines the downside of stardom. He gives Us All His Love is a not at all ironic ode to God. More like a nightmare, Last Night I Had A Dream tells of nocturnal fear while Simon Smith and the Dancing Bear is a curious story of strange fame. Old Man is an unsentimental look at the end of life.
The humor in Political Science is biting and a bit sardonic, and hilarious or scary depending on your outlook. As a Clevelander, Burn On has a special place in my heart. The seemingly slight Memo To My Son turns out to be as sentimental as Newman gets. The quaint Dayton, Ohio 1903 longs for a simpler time. You Can Leave Your Hat On, made famous by Joe Cocker, sounds both sexier and just a bit sad and creepy in Newman's superior version. The final track, God's Song, is one of the more nasty rants against religion ever put to music.
Bad Love contains some of Newman's most sentimental moments as well as some of his most biting satire. Newman himself said, "Before I started Bad Love, I wasn't exactly sure I could do a rock 'n' roll record at 65, or however old I was. But I was satisfied that it was a good record. Maybe my best record."
My Country starts things off with a lovely story of family, community and television. Shame presents a pathetic old man's lust for a younger woman. One of the highlights is I'm Dead (But I Don't Know It), a scathing indictment of rockers who have kept at it too long that includes the lines "Each record that I'm making, Is like a record that I've made, Just not as good". Then we get the sadly sentimental longing for lost love that is Every Time It Rains. That's followed by The Great Nations of Europe, an hilarious (or awful) evaluation of the barbaric tendencies of the "refined" European explorers of the Americas. The One You Love is a warning to men that can't read their lover's mind.
The World Isn't Fair is Newman's critique of the Aristocracy we all live in (or with). Newman sings the praise of untruths in the western swing of Big Hat, No Cattle. Better Off Dead tells the sad tale of one-sided love affairs, in his own funny way. I Miss You is a beautiful, sensitive, sentimental ode to a lost love. Going Home is a brief WWI soldier's story, and then I Want Everyone To Like Me ends the record on an upbeat swinging tune about just what it sounds like. It is both funny and true.
Some of them seem small compared to the big statements, but everything is perfectly crafted with the appropriate support and ideal arrangements. Classic.
