#900: randy newman, ry cooder and linda rondstadt - rider in the rain (1983)
friends, thank you so much for making it to music video #900. randy, linda, ry and i would like to remind you that we’re all riders in rain. and we’re on the prairie together.
#871: antony and the johnsons - thank you for your love (2010)
for reasons that are currently too complex to discuss i didn’t listen to all of antony and the johnson’s the crying light and swanlights, and for that matter somehow didn’t open my copy of robert penn warren’s all the king’s men, until this past week. the albums are like the kid a and amnesiac of decaying forests and fluttered eyelashes and empty bedsheets and throbbing clarinets. and so far all the king’s men is better than both randy newman’s good old boys and a.j. leibling’s the earl of louisiana, which is unlikely and immense. i am grateful for them.
#861: bob marley & the wailers - african herbsman (criteria studio rehearsal, miami fl, 1980)
i just wrote a novella-length dissertation on the wailers’ african herbsman as seen through the lens of randy newman’s sail away in mid-70s america. feeling pretty good about it.
#839: harry nilsson and shelley duvall - he needs me (popeye, dir. robert altman, 1980)
i will commit vegetable-powered violence against any man who makes the uproarious claim that harry nilsson couldn’t reach the romantically glorious heights climbed by his friend and fellow hollywood songwriter randy newman. anyone who disagrees that he needs me is one of the finest wet-eyed moments in swelling cinematic sounds is a no better than alliterative oxblood oxheart, harry hotcash, j. wellington wimpy, bill barnacle, poopdeck pappy or george w. geezil.
blutos are blutos because they’re untouched by the words “love can turn the wheel.”
very special non-apocalypse super groovy music video extravaganza list
this morning my very old summercamp friend julia frakes asked me what i’d do if the world were actually ending, if everyone and i really were all sailing away, and i said for starters i’d listen to the beatles’ white album, because, of course, who wouldn’t?
but it brings up a very important question—which recordings you’d listen to if you only had time for one, or ten. it’s not exactly the same as the desert island disc question (those you’d have to live with forever), and it’s definitely not a greatest-of-all-time list. and so as of now:
1. the beatles’ white album
2. randy newman’s sail away
3. art tatum’s the complete group masterpieces
4. ray charles’ modern sounds in country & western (vol. 1 and 2)
5. radiohead’s kid a and amnesiac
6. david bowie’s ziggy stardust and the spiders from mars
7. thelonious monk’s genius of modern music (vol. 1 and 2)
8. emmylou harris’ pieces of the sky
9. the kinks are the village green preservation society
10. hank williams’ hank williams sings
#770: randy newman - louisiana 1927 (2008)
if you’re looking for something fine to do on this w.a.s.p.-eye-blue sunday, but don’t want to settle for a stroll in the park, then let me recommend spending one hour with randy newman’s good old boys and three with a.j. liebling’s the earl of louisiana.
the first is about the deep south and its barbers from tuscaloosa, princesses with hair piled up high, pitiful floods, pitiless presidents, mighty swords, mean dogs, machinist brothers in law, guilt and love. it would be the perfect american album if only sail away and my old kentucky home were on it and not two earlier randy newman records.
the second is what someone who’s much smarter than me once said is the single finest thing to ever appear in the new yorker, which is true except it wasn’t a single piece: i believe a.j. liebling’s story about louisiana governors earl and huey p. long—whose song every man a king is on good old boys, along with his photograph—was so big that it took up three issues. it’s got caligula, hollering, national guard planes, texas sanitariums, new orleans private hospitals, race tracks, hot springs, pricefighters, and stumping for the gubernatorial nomination, all in one paragraph.
read it outside today, with breaks to listen to randy newman, and you’ll be alright.
“her papa was a midget/ her mama was a whore/ her granddad was a newsboy/ til he was eightyfour/ what a slimey old bastard he was… as long as i have her beside me/ i have the strength to carry on” - randy newman, a wedding in cherokee county from good old boys.
#765: silver jews - random rules (1998)
one reason that i didn’t post a music video on tuesday or wednesday is that i’ve been very busy in the newsroom, and another is that i’ve been very busy worrying about my records. my bookcase has been so full of them that you can’t really pull one out or put it back in afterward without messing a whole row up, and that makes me very upset. the other night my dad tried to look at randy newman’s 12 songs and it was a fiasco. i wish that were a joke, but it isn’t.
there hasn’t even been room at all for some random albums, like bonnie “prince” billy’s lie down in the light, which my ex-girlfriend got me, and the silver jews’ american water, from the ex-girlfriend before that one. they’re random only because i don’t buy recent music on vinyl for myself, though of course i always appreciate it as a gift, like when in november my non-ex-girlfriend leon got me joanna newsom’s huge and perfect have one on me.
so imagine my feelings this saturday night: i was walking down my block on the way to dinner, wearing a tie for no reason, when i saw a medium-sized bookcase that looked reasonably clean and exceedingly suitable for solving all these terrible overflow problems. if you don’t believe those problems are real, or that i don’t really take them seriously, here are five posts about albums i got at my favorite record store, and here are nine posts with eight personal album photos and one of a cassette.
so, of course, i did what any reasonable but concerned person in a tie on his way to saturday night dinner would do. i picked up the bookcase, moved it 30 feet, gave my keys to a passerby, who opened up the door to my building so that i could haul in the bookcase, carried it up five flights of stairs, put the bonnie “prince” billy, silver jews, and joanna newsom albums inside it, and went on my way to dinner. since then i’ve been thinking very carefully and at great length about which records will be moved in with them over from the first bookcase.
no, i haven’t! none of this is true, it was lifted off a men’s room wall and from a description i heard once of what nick hornby’s writing’s like. or was it?
did you know randy newman is a professional boxing referee? here he is! (he’s at the wba world welterweight championship after miguel cotto hit alfonoso gomez pretty hard). does randy newman listen to randy newman? that’d really be something. if so, one should hope it’s i just want you to hurt like i do—hah!--but actually all kidding aside i wonder what his life would be like. meanwhile, has randy newman ever been watching a boxing match without knowing he was looking at randy newman?
i do like watching pay-per-view matches on mute while listening to randy newman, especially five absolutely essential albums of his that everyone in the world should own, and if they don’t they should buy them all right the fuck away. they are, in order, the first being the one with this and this, though all are perfect: (1) sail away (2) 12 songs (3) nilsson sings newman (4) good old boys (5) randy newman (or, randy newman creates something new under the sun).
#738: randy newman - i want you to hurt like i do (1989)
when i was young my dad used to sing the verses of this song that’s about the son, i’m not even joking. i can see him turning to me in the volvo and going, “everybody cried the day i left, almost everybody did, little boy just turned to me, i put my arm around his little shoulder, and this is what i said.” i really can. what if your father were randy newman? it would be great! except of course for what one could only assume would be constant misery and just-below-the-surface itchiness.
bonus! a just-rememberd old picture of randy newman and son
#737: randy newman - god’s song (1972, old grey whistle test)
this is so self-evident that it doesn’t even need to be said, but it’s so true i’ll say it anyway: randy newman is one of the five best songwriters in the history of the world. “lord, no man is free” is the saddest line of the 1970s, but then so is “you must be crazy to put your faith in me.”
it’s also good to see old grey whistle test was hosted by bonnie “prince” billy’s granddad.
there are several things to be thankful for, but two important ones that come to mind just now are randy newman’s sail away (the song about slave traders, but, more importantly, the completely flawless album of the same name, which every home should listen to every day this december), and mozart’s flute quartets played by jean-pierre rampal and isaac stern. speaking of which, a third thing is the slim but complete book of mozart’s letters, which might be the best thing i’ve read all year. “adieu, little cousin,” is how he ends a note at age 22. “i am, i was, i should be, i have been, i had been, i should have been, oh that i were, oh that i might be, would to god i were, i shall be, if i should be, oh that i should be, i shall have been, oh that i had been, would to god that i had been, what? a duffer. adieu, ma chère cousine, where have you been? i am your same old faithful cousin.”
#671: leonard cohen - suzanne (1970, isle of wight)
if i had to generalize, i would say that so far the big difference between my early-20s and mid-20s is that my love for the eternal truths of leonard cohen outshined my believe in the eternal truths of randy newman (see them go head-to-head on one homonymous song here), until one day i woke up and realized that all of a sudden it was vice versa. of course the late-20s may have some surprises up its sleeve, but who can really say?
#670: the hollies - sorry suzanne (1969, top of the pops)
the other day i was thinking very hard about how weezer’s suzanne, with its references to not one or two but three members of guns n’ roses, stacks up to leonard cohen’s suzanne, which is perfect, basically. as if it weren’t complicated enough already, i just remembered randy newman’s suzanne, a song that not only begins “i saw your name, baby, in a telephone booth, and it told all about you, i hope it was the truth,” but has what i believe is ry cooder’s slide guitar moaning lasciviously the whole way through. and then, amazingly, there’s also the hollies, singing to a fourth suzanne, in white suits, holding silly microphones, and with a very nice guitar solo, too. plus also lou reed’s mid-8s i love you, suzanne, last and very much least, thanks especially to a video that begins with 32 seconds of a phone ringing loudly.
#651: emmylou harris and daniel lanois - wrecking ball (1995)
10 letters i will get around to writing in the new year, no. 5771:
1. to emmylou harris, thanking her for wrecking ball, the song and also the album
2. to philip roth, asking when he’s going to get around to writing a really great book again, especially if the book that comes out in october is at all like the last ones.
3. to max abelson, the one who lives in brooklyn and has a brother named alan, who is not me, who lives in manhattan and has a brother named tommy.
4. to mrs. stevens, my second grade teacher, who was really great.
5. to her son trevor, who had one leg and was my best friend for a few summers in elementary school, and was a much finer athlete.
6. to e.b. white, who’s dead, but have you read here is new york? it’s so good.
7. to don cornelius, asking for a copy of the new soul train dvd set.
8. to van dyke parks, asking if he’d fly to trinidad with me.
9. to max abelson, myself, to read if i make it to 100.
10. to daniel lanois, thanking him for helping with wrecking ball.
