Randy Newman is the greatest living American songwriter.
Forgive me for sidestepping the usual introductory throat-clearing. Sometimes you need to cut to the chase.
Particularly during the holidays. Everyone’s busy, wrapping gifts — I almost said “shopping,” but nobody shops anymore, right? Not in stores. Amazon just drops stuff on our doorsteps.
At least we’re still listening to those Christmas carol collections. People complain about holiday music, but I love it. Great songs by timeless composers like George Handel and Felix Mendelssohn (what, you didn’t know the former wrote the music to “Joy to the World,” and the latter to “Hark! The Herald Angels Sing”? They did).
When the subject of great American composers of holiday tunes come up, we’re left with Irving Berlin, whose “White Christmas” has not aged well, even though it’s about snow, supposedly.
Raising the question: Who’s the greatest living American composer? Not Bruce Springsteen — his songs are too personal. Nobody sings a Springsteen song; it’s unimaginable. I’m tempted to say Tom Waits, just to hear that groan that goes up when I mention his name. “Hold On,” “Mr. Siegel,” and two dozen more. Fantastic.
But he doesn’t compare to Randy Newman.
Even if the name leaves you blank, you know his work, at least the soundtrack to “Toy Story.” Newman wrote “You’ve Got a Friend in Me,” and no doubt cringes to consider his best-known song is a bit of hired fluff. He’s scored dozens of movies.
Music is personal, and I should show my hand. Randy Newman songs have been the soundtrack of my life, from his first hit, “Mama Told Me Not to Come,” which came out in 1970, when I was in fifth grade, a hint of the sort of parties I’d seek and, to my sorrow, eventually find.
Newman is a humorist and storyteller, who sings in character. That would trip him up as his songs became hits, and listeners had to figure out that he didn’t really, personally think short people have no reason to live.
In 1988, he stepped out from behind the mask and offered up “Land of Dreams,” an obviously autobiographical album, since nobody could imagine “Four Eyes.” And how could anybody who ever showed up to elementary school in glasses not love him after that?
My wife and I considered “You Can Leave Your Hat On” for our first dance at our wedding — you might remember the Joe Cocker version from “9 1/2 Weeks” — but decided the tune, practically a striptease, is too bawdy and would shock the old folks.
Now we’re the old folks ...
Five years later, the boys showed up, and I routinely crooned Newman’s “Guilty” as a lullaby. Why? Maybe just trying to add a little edge to the fuzzy blue blanket of domestic life, or trying to tell them something significant about their dad. In my defense, the song could be addressed to a toddler. It begins, “Yes, baby, I been drinkin’...”
Newman songs kept coming. He wrote an updated “Faust.” My older son played that album so often that I had to ask him to stop.
When our 30th anniversary came in 2020, I was looking for music to accompany a slideshow of our lives together, created as a present — my wife isn’t the “buy me stuff” type. The Los Angeles NPR station had asked Newman to do something to encourage mask wearing. He wrote a song, naturally — “Stay Away.” It not only encapsulated lockdown life during COVID — “I’m gonna be with you 24 hours a day/A lot of people couldn’t stand that/But you can” — but was perfect for a couple married in 1990. “Thirty years together and we’re still having fun/once we were two/now we are one.”
It began to dawn on me: I’ve been listening to this guy since I was 10. And he’s been ticking off every development of my life. Up to right now. Newman celebrated his 2013 induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of fame by singing, “I’m Dead (But I Don’t Know It).” “I have nothing left to say/But I’m going to say it anyway.” An anthem for an aging columnist if ever there were one.
Newman’s been peppered with awards — two Oscars, plus Grammys, Emmys — which of course he shrugs off. “Awards don’t have much to do with merit,” he told Ray Bennett.
Last month, I was wondering what I could do to justify writing about Newman. Maybe he had a birthday coming up. I had this thought on Nov. 28, 2023, so I checked — it was his 80th birthday, that very day. Which could be interpreted as, “Too late.” But I’m usually late. The coincidence could also be taken as karmic approval and a prod to action. If there was some big media extravaganza, an outpouring of appreciation for him, I couldn’t find it. That usually happens only when a singer passes away, and social media cranks up what I call The Full Diana.
Why wait? You should tell people you appreciate them while they are still alive. Though I can’t imagine a chain of circumstances where Newman would find out about this, or that he could possibly care if he did. That’s OK. I care, and figure, with Christmas upon us and the city going quiet, I can safely slip this under the civic tree without being unacceptably off-point, and consider you reading this far as an indulgence, your gift to me.
Randy Newman said he expected “to go unremembered, unmourned in the future.” I expect many people feel that way, particularly this time of year. It’s not necessarily true. Merry Christmas.
