Randy Newman Songbook Volume 1
Ah, Randy Newman (I'm kind of grooving on starting all my entries with, "Ah, ..." Sort of like Rush's "heh." I need some signature move, so for now it's "Ah, ...").
A convenient segue from Ah, Columbus..., Newman's sickle-sharp lyrics (here from "Great Nations of Europe") feature prominently on the new Songbook, Vol. 1. Here we have an artist looking back - not to manufacture a "greatest hits with two new tracks!" compilation but to strip back lush production, studio sheen and luster to focus on the guts of his oeuvre. These are new recordings of Newman on piano, singing his songs like Kerns and Porter, placing before us a reference document for us to follow. So where does Newman lead?
From the opening chords of the penned-for-Sinatra "Lonely at the Top", Newman makes it plain that this piano man's tip jar is still empty, his sarky attitude sending patrons for the exits. By subtracting the oompah and horns from the original you get more bile than Weill. Where the original seemed more tongue and cheek (a knowing wink to the audience, a la Mischa Spoliansky's "Special Girlfriend"), the Songbook version holds both sadness and anger barely in check. At any point, the song could end with a tear or a gun.
While "Lonely at the Top" gains a bitter edge, the Good Old Boys tracks - "Louisiana 1927", "Rednecks" and "Marie" - lose something in the stripping process. "Louisiana 1927" is missing some poignancy without it's strings. "Rednecks" suffers too, though here it is Newman's singing that leads in the lose department. The original, sung so powerfully, proudly, from the narrator's point of view, is transformed here by Newman by his seemingly stepping outside the character. His singing has an urgency and disgust that the topic deserves, but this song is one of hypocrisy not condemnation. A definite step down from the original. "Marie" - the neglectful drunkard's love song - seems truer to life without the original string accompaniment, but I feel Newman's voice fails him. The Good Old Boys performance is so fragile and delicate, and as he's gotten older Newman's vocal performances have become more limited in range.
I feel cheap for criticizing vocal performances that are 30 years apart, but it is such a testament to the strength of his work, past and present, that you need to consider it a strong part of any critical differentiation. And yet, there are tracks here almost impossible to contrast. "I Think It's Going to Rain Today", originally recorded in 1968, is almost identical to the Songbook version. Strings v. No Strings is your only choice, as the performances are so strikingly similar in delivery and emotive power. The same can be said of "God's Song (That's Why I Love Mankind)" - if they were mimeographs they would be less than three or four copies apart.
Kissing cousins, each and every one. A few missing guitar licks, soft horns and strings. These are set pieces, master takes to be embellished at a later date. Some add power - "In Germany Before the War" seems even more predatory, Robert Mitchum in a remake of M. Some subtract - "Political Science" relies solely on the biting sarcasm of the lyrics (We give them money/But are they grateful?/No they're spiteful/And they're hateful/They don't respect us so let's surprise them/We'll drop the big one and pulverize them) without the vaudevillian swing of the snare drum.
Which leaves us where? What journey have we made? We can't know without examining one of Newman's best, the slave traider's recruitment song, "Sail Away." The original is an anthem, resembling a mischievous cross of the TWA and Come Back to Jamaica commercial melodies, an advertisement for the Disney Song of the South theme cruise. The Songbook version hints at regret, the performer having made the trip back across the Atlantic too many times before. It's tempting to hear this as Newman's comment on his big money work of soundtracks and scoring - "I got on the ship, and see where I am" - a richer man writing jingles on company time. There certainly is a poignancy to this performance, whatever its reason.
This leaves Songbook an album touched with more than a hint of sadness, anger and regret. A crucial re-examination by the artist himself, reworking, recasting, and reclaiming his own history. With Volumes 2 & 3 slated to follow, I for one will wait anxiously while revisiting Songbook, Vol. 1 over and over again.
Columbus sailed for India, found Salvador instead
He shook hands with some Indians and soon they all were dead
They got TB and typhoid and athletes foot, diphtheria and the flu
Excuse Me! Great nations are coming through
A convenient segue from Ah, Columbus..., Newman's sickle-sharp lyrics (here from "Great Nations of Europe") feature prominently on the new Songbook, Vol. 1. Here we have an artist looking back - not to manufacture a "greatest hits with two new tracks!" compilation but to strip back lush production, studio sheen and luster to focus on the guts of his oeuvre. These are new recordings of Newman on piano, singing his songs like Kerns and Porter, placing before us a reference document for us to follow. So where does Newman lead?
From the opening chords of the penned-for-Sinatra "Lonely at the Top", Newman makes it plain that this piano man's tip jar is still empty, his sarky attitude sending patrons for the exits. By subtracting the oompah and horns from the original you get more bile than Weill. Where the original seemed more tongue and cheek (a knowing wink to the audience, a la Mischa Spoliansky's "Special Girlfriend"), the Songbook version holds both sadness and anger barely in check. At any point, the song could end with a tear or a gun.
While "Lonely at the Top" gains a bitter edge, the Good Old Boys tracks - "Louisiana 1927", "Rednecks" and "Marie" - lose something in the stripping process. "Louisiana 1927" is missing some poignancy without it's strings. "Rednecks" suffers too, though here it is Newman's singing that leads in the lose department. The original, sung so powerfully, proudly, from the narrator's point of view, is transformed here by Newman by his seemingly stepping outside the character. His singing has an urgency and disgust that the topic deserves, but this song is one of hypocrisy not condemnation. A definite step down from the original. "Marie" - the neglectful drunkard's love song - seems truer to life without the original string accompaniment, but I feel Newman's voice fails him. The Good Old Boys performance is so fragile and delicate, and as he's gotten older Newman's vocal performances have become more limited in range.
I feel cheap for criticizing vocal performances that are 30 years apart, but it is such a testament to the strength of his work, past and present, that you need to consider it a strong part of any critical differentiation. And yet, there are tracks here almost impossible to contrast. "I Think It's Going to Rain Today", originally recorded in 1968, is almost identical to the Songbook version. Strings v. No Strings is your only choice, as the performances are so strikingly similar in delivery and emotive power. The same can be said of "God's Song (That's Why I Love Mankind)" - if they were mimeographs they would be less than three or four copies apart.
Kissing cousins, each and every one. A few missing guitar licks, soft horns and strings. These are set pieces, master takes to be embellished at a later date. Some add power - "In Germany Before the War" seems even more predatory, Robert Mitchum in a remake of M. Some subtract - "Political Science" relies solely on the biting sarcasm of the lyrics (We give them money/But are they grateful?/No they're spiteful/And they're hateful/They don't respect us so let's surprise them/We'll drop the big one and pulverize them) without the vaudevillian swing of the snare drum.
Which leaves us where? What journey have we made? We can't know without examining one of Newman's best, the slave traider's recruitment song, "Sail Away." The original is an anthem, resembling a mischievous cross of the TWA and Come Back to Jamaica commercial melodies, an advertisement for the Disney Song of the South theme cruise. The Songbook version hints at regret, the performer having made the trip back across the Atlantic too many times before. It's tempting to hear this as Newman's comment on his big money work of soundtracks and scoring - "I got on the ship, and see where I am" - a richer man writing jingles on company time. There certainly is a poignancy to this performance, whatever its reason.
This leaves Songbook an album touched with more than a hint of sadness, anger and regret. A crucial re-examination by the artist himself, reworking, recasting, and reclaiming his own history. With Volumes 2 & 3 slated to follow, I for one will wait anxiously while revisiting Songbook, Vol. 1 over and over again.
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