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“A Wedding In Cherokee County” by Randy Newman.

I usually don’t like it when songwriters tell the “story” behind the song. But, Randy is different.

As always, with a thrust of your mighty sword, click pause on the music player located on the side bar before playing the YouTube.

Let’s hear it once again for the ol’ untrustworthy narrator. Randy Newman sums up the eternal struggle between the haves and have nots in slightly over 3:30 with “My Life Is Good”.

As always, click pause on the music player located in the side bar before playing the YouTube…that’s right!

…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.