DU Album of the Day: "Good Old Boys" Randy Newman

[gratuitous]

CAUTION: Not for the easily offended!

Okay, you've been warned. Fair enough? This, Newman's fifth studio release in 1974, followed (slowly) on the far more critically acclaimed 1972 album "Sail Away." Folks who hadn't been paying attention in 1972 got both barrels of Newman's lyrical skills in 1974. At first blush, several of the tracks on "Good Old Boys" sound like virulent condemnation of racist Southern attitudes. On second and third blush, too. The condemnation is undeniably there. But uncomfortably for snickering white Northerners, the racist attitudes don't stay confined to the Good Old Boy South. Is Newman giving Southerners the business? Is he extolling the dubious virtues of Huey Long? Is he lovingly recounting some Southern foibles? Yes. And no.

This isn't an easy album to categorize from a lyrical standpoint, but anyone who takes Newman's lyrics at face value, or who takes them too seriously, is buying a pack of trouble. And if you're not getting it, be sure that you too may be the object of Newman's stiletto wit.

But the lyrics are only part of the story, as with any of Randy Newman's efforts. In some ways, his music carries and absolves the lyrics of any offense. In other ways, the music is merely the wallpaper in a room at Bedlam. But the careful consumer can't help but be changed in some way by attentive and repeated listening. The songs are cunningly woven to appeal to different parts of the brain, even different moods, as those songs themselves impose a mood on the listener. Things are not always what they seem. Different hearers will reach different conclusions, and even an individual may not be the same listener today that he or she will be tomorrow.

1 Rednecks
2 Birmingham
3 Marie
4 Mr. President (Have Pity on the Working Man)
5 Guilty
6 Louisiana 1927
7 Every Man a King
8 Kingfish
9 Naked Man
10 A Wedding in Cherokee County
11 Back on My Feet Again
12 Rollin'

[nolabear]

1. There's sure to be some flack, but I love Randy Newman, and here's why.

As you said, there are layers upon layers to his lyrics, and you're never entirely sure you're not being skewered yourself by his sharp observations. As someone raised in MS and LA I knew from the first time I heard "Rednecks" that there was going to be hell to pay, from the folks being called out and from the folks trying on self-righteousness like a rich relative's coat.

Randy Newman is generous and mean at the same time. I saw him not terribly long after Katrina hit New Orleans, in Seattle. He was singing and also being interviewed. We were all perhaps out of shock but hardly out of rage, and he had the balls to tell the interviewer "Whe I found out about the storm I thought two things. One was that it was the most horrible thing that had happened in my life time. The second was that I was going to make some moneeeeeey!" We laughed. Believe me, New Orlenians would laugh. Of course Louisiana 1927 is still, to all of us, about Katrina.

I think Newman's a smart songwriter for smart people who can also rip out a cute score for a movie about toys. He likes taking it to the bank. He knows life is a royal pain in the ass and his music reflects that with humor and not very much grace...leave that to others. And for those who say his work all sounds the same, I say "Yes. And I can tell a Chuck Berry song a mile away."

Thanks for the post. I'm going to golisten to some RN now.

[MiddleFingerMom]

2. I had a roommate in Pennsylvania who was an INCREDIBLE solo acoustic bar performer...

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... who included "Rednecks" as part of his repertoire. I thought it was the bravest AND
most foolhardy thing he could do -- all sorts of people could misunderstand and do him
some physical damage -- or the "Rednecks" referred to in the song could actually get
that the barbs were pointed at them (though most ignant racists just ain't that aigheaded).
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"Little Criminals" is one of my favorites of his, though I REALLY dislike "Short People". It
DOES have my favorite song of his (and maybe my favorite song title EVER) -- "Sigmund
Freud's Impersonation of Albert Einstein in America". Smart and witty. Nah.
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"Americans dream of gypsies, I have found
And gypsy knives and gypsy thighs
That pound and pound and pound and pound
And African appendages that almost reach the ground
And little boys playing baseball in the rain."
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[nolabear]

3. LOL! Freud was singularly unimpressed by America.

I expect RN knew that and ran with it. I hate Short People too. I'm also not crazy about I Love LA. When he tries to be populist he fails miserably, but when he sticks to either skewering or embracing they don't come any better.

[taterguy]

4. There was a good article about it in one of the Oxford American music issues

Can't seem to find it online though.

Well, I might be able to if I looked longer than 2 minutes.