…that fascinates me, he operates differently than any other songwriter I know of.
He’s got a different toolbox. He comes from a musical family but, not like other musical families. His three uncles, Alfred Newman, Lionel Newman and Emil Newman, were all well known for composing music for films. When other writers will use a familiar musical device to emphasize a lyric, it usually comes from a pop song, blues riff, jazz chord change even a gospel song. Randy Newman conjures little fragments of classic film music that were intended to set a scene, identify a character or trait or, trigger an emotional response. These things are often subliminal and tend to draw on earlier forms of classical and folk music.
Randy Newman is also well versed in how to manifest these musical ideas. He has always been adept at arranging for strings, horns and such.
He doesn’t write boy/girl songs. That’s odd right there because people like boy/girl songs. The great majority of all songs are boy/girl songs. This makes Randy’s success as a composer for films even more peculiar because, most films also feature the relationship as a central component and thus, most composers for films write a lot of boy/girl songs.
He writes for his own voice which has a limited physical range. His songs aren’t obvious vocal showcases so, you don’t see a lot of “look at me” type singers covering his songs. He’s not going to make a big living from Mariah or Celine royalties.
On top of all that, Randy Newman writes from a third person perspective. I’ve heard him refer to it as the “untrustworthy narrator” perspective. Most songwriters, that put food on the table, rely on the illusion, at least, that some part of what they write is autobiographical. Not Newman, he is either describing other characters and/or playing a character while using dialect and conversational nuance.
I can’t think of another writer that is close to this same ball park.
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Tags: boy/girl songs, composer, narrator perspective, Randy Newman
Sans Direction wrote,
As a lyricist, I find that Zevon could be in very similar places. But musically, he’s from another time, and yes, the movies, so it makes sense that he scores so much.
Ahem….
Link | September 18th, 2008 at 12:43 pm
Pribek wrote,
heh heh…I hear Zevon scored more than most…Ahem..
But seriously, I heard the Zevon studied with Stravinsky but, I never heard an overt influence there but, yeah I can see the point lyrically. Although, I can see the autobiographical side of his stuff in places where I don’t with Randy Newman. Sometimes that is illusory or persona driven. I don’t think Johnny Cash shot a man in Reno, just to watch him die but, I could envision him doing it. I don’t think Warren was gambling in Havana but, I’m sure he went home with a waitress or two.
Link | September 18th, 2008 at 1:02 pm
J wrote,
Newman is a gifted poet and every movie could be made just a little better with a catchy Randy Newman theme song.
Proof positive = http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kmC1UuBdp20
Link | September 18th, 2008 at 3:13 pm
Jayne d'Arcy wrote,
I think I started something with my email to you, Jack. Coolness!
Link | September 18th, 2008 at 4:47 pm
Pat Darnell and Friends wrote,
Yeah, Jack, but you cut me with a knife… just to make me disappear….
and yet here I am: Some say third person ‘untrustworthy narrator’ is mastery for writers. It lends itself to allegory and transcendence of theme and so on… as much as understatement… all good for poetry. My best example is ‘Metamorphosis” by Kafka?? but he is European. Jack and group, sorry I can’t go into this one without some explanation.
I usually go to Emily Dickinson’s unaltered poems, or Sara Teasdale, or Edna St. Vincent Millary… for getting me going on any sort of dialogue. Like a song that most often is first person, if it can include the third person as in “I said; she said,” as if a narrated story of something that happened; that is my preference. When it is ‘I said, you said” “or “You have to” second person often sounds like preaching, so I do not enjoy the song so much.
Oh, those poets are all women? American women? Yep, women write better poetry than do men, most of the time. Women have larger vocabularies, and more experience with dialogue in using a larger vocabulary in dialogue. When men finally get to that point I think Carl Jung says it is gender finding the anima of his existence. Anima is the female element in the male unconscious, animus in the female unconscious. (Jung, C G; 1964; Man and his Symbols)..
Randy Newman has a unique point of view and it is nice of Jayne/Jack to bring it up for discussion. I was around when “The Lovin’ Spoonful” gave me poem poison with lyrics I still have memorized [well, mostly]. “Hot town; summer in the city, back of my neck gettin’ burnt and pretty…” imagine it as an anthem growing up in Houston for me.
Example of Sara Teasdale:
Love Songs
Life has loveliness to sell,
All beautiful and splendid things,
Blue waves whitened on a cliff,
Soaring fire that sways and sings,
And children’s faces looking up
Holding wonder like a cup.
[...]
Or –
Night Song at Amalfi
I asked the heaven of stars
What I should give my love–
It answered me with silence,
Silence above.
I asked the darkened sea
Down where the fishers go–
It answered me with silence,
Silence below.
Link | September 19th, 2008 at 10:18 am
Pat Darnell and Friends wrote,
[SOURCE] 2008-09-18 Did you see this on that Border’s page you sent us to? This is hilarious… well, I think it is.
Noel Gallagher has admitted that he was thinking about allowing Amy Winehouse to sing some of the “spare” songs he has written, but he does not think that she will live long enough.
The Oasis songwriter and guitarist says that he has “30-odd” songs left over from recording sessions of the band’s new album Dig Out Your Soul.
He said that he did not know what to do with them all and has considered giving them to another artist to sing.
Speaking to NME magazine, he said: “Well, there’s a few that sound like girls could sing them, but who? Amy Winehouse? She’ll be dead before I write another one.”
However, Gallagher added he had also toyed with the idea of letting Duffy to sing the songs or even allowing them to be used in a film.
He said: “That Duffy’s alright. I could imagine her singing a few of the tracks. But I might put them forward for a film, although I don’t want them to end up in any romantic comedies.”
Link | September 19th, 2008 at 11:13 am
Pribek wrote,
As a generalization, you can look at song lyrics laying on a page and they just blow as poetry. And, good poetry is usually diminished when set to music. I know that there are exceptions but, the literary guidelines don’t match up with songwriting. Newman gets away with a thing that others don’t. He is his own straight man. I think that he is delighted that one person hearing him describe Clarence Thomas’ status as a brother (Pluto isn’t a planet anymore either) and peg him as a limousine liberal where somebody else would hear him say, “we ought to drop the big one now” and assume him right-wing nut. He doesn’t have to own up to any of it. It’s a tough thing to pull off when the medium is the ditty.
Link | September 19th, 2008 at 2:45 pm