max abelson's super groovy music video spectacular

#544: three dog night - mama told me not to come (live, 1973)

the three best live versions of three dog night’s cover of randy newman’s mama told me not to come are basically anti-drug commercials. this version from 1973 is obviously about the dangerous matching of floral patterned shirts with vests that cocaine causes, 1970’s performance from the war memorial auditorium in rochester warns against heroin’s thick and monochromatic heaviness, and a televised show from the same year should be forced upon all pill-popping teenagers when they’re caught rummaging through dad’s medicine cabinet to prove what kinds of green and yellow bell-bottoms you wear when amphetamines take over your brain. still, that is one delectable electric keyboard riff.

#500: dusty springfield - i think it’s going to rain today (1970)

despite this song’s sad sentiment, here’s happy news: this is video #500—five hundred, which means six videos a year if you live to be 83 and a third. the community said it couldn’t be done, but last week alone, according to google analytics, we had visitors from iran, rwanda, vietnam and herzegovina. that’s the truth. makes me darn proud.

and while jan. 28, 2008 was a different time, dusty springfield’s goodness has stayed the same. this isn’t one of the two randy newman songs on dusty in memphis, but it’s a really good one anyway—though probably not better than his version on the album that’s self-titled (but says on the back, creates something new under the sun).

#498: randy newman - marie (bbc, 2008)

by a landslide, “you wouldn’t be so stupid, if you were randy newman,” is this year’s best quip written on a card held up by a young indie rock frontman in a music video. and randy newman is this year’s best reason to live, just like he’s been every year since 1968—when love story (you and me) kicked off his self-titled debut. warbled love songs about sloven laziness, cruel weakness, singing trees and true romance are the only love songs worth listening to.

#487: frank zappa & the mothers of invention - sleeping in a jar (1969)

today i enjoyed a frank zappa album for the first time ever. before he’d seemed annoying and jazz major-ish, like you could tell he’d suffered asthmatic sinus problems as a child. but i bought a 99-cent lp of we’re only in it for the money (from bleecker street records, which, as of this week, no longer carries 99-cent lps, an unbelievably bad decision that i sincerely hope they reverse). the music lives up to its excellent yellow cover, sgt. pepper-aping inner sleeve, and free cut-out insert. it would make for a great musical adapted by john cale, randy newman, and van dyke parks. this video happens to be from a year later, but it’s excellently reminds me of madvillain’s meat grinder. on the other hand, i may not listen to all of we’re only it for the money for another four months, so maybe all this is just the long thanksgiving weekend talking.

#464: randy newman - my old kentucky home (live in germany, 1975)

it’s like a whorehouse’s pianola and eudora welty’s short stories had a jewish baby who whistled stephen foster songs and could rhyme dandelion with turpentine, then add wine to make a ray bradbury reference. i swear, one day i’ll have a daughter named susan and a son named randy, just so he can say: “sister sue, she’s short and stout/ she didn’t grow up she grew out/ mama says she’s plain, she’s just being kind/ papa thinks she’s pretty but he’s almost blind.”

#357: randy newman - sail away (1972)

it’s hard for a song to sound so sweet and feathery that you need to hear it seven times before you realize that the whole thing’s a slave trader’s sales pitch to africans about the glories of american life. but because these verses are so pretty and patriotic (“in america you’ll get food to eat/ won’t have to run through the jungle and scuff up your feet/ you’ll just sing about jesus and drink wine all day/ it’s great to be an american”) poor old bobby darin and linda rondstadt might not have realized what they were singing about when they covered sail away.

in this clip from the old grey whistle test, randy newman sings with such grave straightforwardness that he’s miles beyond irony, which, if you’re going to make a perfectly beautiful song about perfect ugliness, is probably the only way to do it.

#322: randy newman - falling in love (1988)

forget dire straits’ money for nothing, a-ha’s take on me and peter gabriel’s sledgehammer: randy newman’s falling in love is the best video of the 1980s. it has everything anyone could ever want from the decade, including mustachioed tom selleck getting his hair cut, mustachioed tom selleck getting hit by a car, and mustachioed tom selleck getting shot in the buttocks with an arrow.

there are knives, trampolines, three angels doing robert palmer-like synchronized dance moves in mini-skirts, long-haired toddlers in suspenders and angel wings, plus a white piano falling from the heavens onto what i think is michael jackson. and of course there’s randy newman at his shaggy-haired late-80s finest, looking like a substitute math teacher and making fun of phil collins. and even though i like randy newman songs better when harry nilsson is singing them, this song is undeniably splendid. and the opening line “your eyelids getting heavy, hard to lift” is in iambic pentameter, not like i sit around thinking about these kinds of things.

ed. note: the spectacular is fiercly against forcing the world to watch ads along with music videos, but it seems that there’s no other way to show this randy newman tune. the good news is that three out of nine times the video comes with an ad for a dual-action, fast-healing cold sores product. hoorah for rock and roll!

#269: randy newman - he gives us all his love (from cold turkey, 1971)

if you listen to just one ironic but insanely beautiful randy newman gospel song that plays over the opening credits of a norman lear comedy about tobacco executives (but is preceded by a sequence involving mother dexter from phyllis talking about bullshit communists and whatnot), won’t you please make it this one?