Randy Newman said it best:

[Liberalynn]

"People say I'm crazy to worry all the time. If you paid attention you'd be worried too!" from "It's a Jungle Out There" bettter known as the "Monk" t.v. series theme song.

This is response to my family that keeps saying "don't worry this is all going to work out somehow."

Don't listen to all the crumbling noises around you. They are figments of your imagination.

[NightWatcher]

1. I thought you were going to say you had no use for short people 'round you.

[Liberalynn]

2. No short people are perfectly fine

unless of course they are short people who believe in Supply Side econmoics. ;)

[NightWatcher]

4. Better song: Don't need no supply siders round me

With their pointy little heads and their stupid little minds....

[Liberalynn]

7. I like that one.

:rofl:

[SusanaMontana41]

3. Now that song will be in my head all day. n/t

:rofl: :applause:

[Wise Child]

5. Well then,

Should I put away my Bobby McFerrin record?

[Liberalynn]

6. I think its time.

;)

[taterguy]

8. Randy Newman doesn't know his ass from a hole in the ground

[Liberalynn]

17. Thanks for sharing! :

:hug:

[taterguy]

23. Oh FFS

It's an homage to Newman. He'd say the same thing about himself, the same way he wrote Short People even though he's barely five feet tall.

It's lifted from his song Rednecks from his masterpiece album Good Old Boys.

Of course you can never tell with Newman. I always thought his song "Money" was satire. Then he started doing all those insipid theme songs for anyone whose check would clear.

[PurityOfEssence]

24. You can tell with Newman

The trick is to understand that his songs are written from a fictional character's point of view. Sometimes he writes from his own point of view, but more often he doesn't. That's why, in "Rednecks", he'll say "last night I saw Lester Maddox on the TV set with some smart-ass New York Jew": Randy himself is Jewish, but the character taking umbrage at being put down as a Southerner isn't.

When he finally won an Academy Award, he was asked why he didn't thank God. His response was decent and almost meek, but certainly factual in saying he didn't believe.

Going through the vast library--and I mean VAST--one finds someone at once cynical and abrasive, while still being kind-hearted and deeply sincere. This is borne out by his having been covered by a broader range of artists than anyone else I can think of: Three Dog Night, Leonard Cohen, Harry Nilsson (who did a whole album of covers), Joe Cocker, Judy Collins and others. That he lets Beck Beer use a song sung from the point of view of a greasy slave-trader enticing a native onto a slave ship (Sail Away) is testimony to his business sense. I don't think I've ever heard him let something be totally bowdlerized for an evil cause, unlike the jaw-dropping exhibition of Elton John singing at Rush Limbaugh's wedding for a million dollars.

He's also very hard on himself under the guise of characters close to himself. Listen to "Shame" or "I'm dead, but I don't know it" sometime, or simply the loopily snide ("My Life is Good")

You can tell. He's the realest of the real. Listen to "God's Song" or "Political Science", then listen to "Texas Girl at the Funeral of her Father" and come back with any dismissal.

Sorry you got caught by someone not knowing that you were riffing off a quote from a song, but hey, it's a rather unsubtle world, isn't it?

[deutsey]

9. You might be wrong, now

BUT I DON'T THINK SO!

:-)

[Liberalynn]

16. I love that line too.

That song really went well with the Monk series.

[redwitch]

10. "Boom goes London, boom Paree"

Sums it up pretty well too. At least as far as the economy that is.

[Liberalynn]

18. not going too good as far as the economy goes anywhere

[tularetom]

11. This one really describes a lot of our elected people

Including our former president.

And in the opinion of some our current president.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y-5jZs8K_o0

[Liberalynn]

19. I'd never heard that one before.

Thanks for the link. I haven't really heard much of his other stuff. I know "Its A Jungle Out There" mostly because I was a "Monk" fan.

[SidDithers]

12. "Short people got no reason to live"?...nt

Sid

[slackmaster]

13. You beat me to it.

:D

[Liberalynn]

20. That song I didn't care for

[Poll_Blind]

14. There are few things that haven't been said best by Randy Newman.

:thumbsup:

PB

[JustAmused]

15. God's Song

I still love the Etta James version of that one...lol

*edited to add the lyrics*

Cain slew Abel Seth knew not why
For if the children of Israel were to multiply
Why must any of the children die?
So he asked the Lord
And the Lord said:

"Man means nothing he means less to me
than the lowiliest cactus flower
or the humblest yucca tree
he chases round this desert
cause he thinks that's where i'll be
that's why i love mankind

I recoil in horror from the foulness of thee
from the squalor and the filth and the misery
How we laugh up here in heaven at the prayers you offer me
That's why i love mankind"

The Christians and the Jews were having a jamboree
The Buddhists and the Hindus joined on satellite TV
They picked their four greatest priests
And they began to speak
They said "Lord the plague is on the world
Lord no man is free
The temples that we built to you
Have tumbled into the sea
Lord, if you won't take care of us
Won't you please please let us be?"

And the Lord said
And the Lord said

"I burn down your cities--how blind you must be
I take from you your children and you say how blessed are we
You must all be crazy to put your faith in me
That's why i love mankind
You really need me
That's why i love mankind"

[Liberalynn]

21. I had never heard this before either.

Thanks for sharing it.

[CTyankee]

22. I just finished a book that described what the Nazis did to Holland in WW2.

They literally starved the Dutch people and bombed the crap out of Rotterdam. They rounded up the Jews (altho the Dutch were better than the French in trying to protect them). They stole their art. Those poor people were at the mercy of the Nazi monsters and could not escape to mountains or forests as people in other European countries could do.

I have been thinking about the absolute disaster of what happened to Holland and I put our problems in perspective. I guess it was fortuitous that I was reading this book at this time, because I am able to measure our difficulties with what other people have endured. And do endure. Whatever is going on here, we are not that Holland and we are not present day Somalia. We can't allow ourselves to get so depressed we give ourselves over to despair.

[badtoworse]

25. How about some Backslider's Wine?