Randy Newman, a Great American, Is Still With Us

Randy Newman had reached the third verse of his one big hit, “Short People,” when suddenly he blanked out on the words.

Three times he tried, but the words wouldn’t come. He shouted out to the audience: “Those little pukes gave me so much trouble they made me forget the last verse!”

The crowd roared in laughter and applauded him.

This happened on a memorable evening in February 1980 at the American Shakespeare Theater in Stratford, CT. Newman delivered a funny line about the site when he took the stage that night; gazing around the venue, he mused: “Shakespeare actually got started here…”

This man has always been guaranteed to get us laughing, even when his songs are so satirical they can be misinterpreted as being mean. In “Short People,” he said they’ve got “no reason to live.” Here’s the verse he forgot at that theater: “They got little baby legs and they stand so low; You got to pick ‘em up just to say hello.”

Some people didn’t get the joke. There were short people who were so offended that they actually picketed some of his shows! That’s who he was talking about when he referred to “those little pukes.”

I’ve loved Newman’s songs for decades, going way back to before that show in 1980. But we Newman cultists have lost track of the guy; what’s he been up to? He hasn’t issued a new record album/CD since 2017, nor has he written music for a movie in the past five years. He rarely does live performances.

Then over the past week came a review in the New York Times of a new book by Robert Hilburn — “A Few Words in Defense of Our Country: The Biography of Randy Newman.” The title references a scathing song of his from the album “Harps and Angels,” issued in 2008 in the waning days of President George W. Bush. From that gem: “Now the leaders we have/while they’re the worst that we’ve had/Are hardly the worst this poor world has seen.” Newman went on to cite Hitler and Stalin as well as a few other scoundrels. (I’m waiting for a Newman takedown of Trump).

The Times book review and a major feature on Newman, also in the Times (Oct. 20) revealed that in recent years he broke his neck — twice! “I was chasing after a dog when I stepped in a hole. And I broke it again with another fall.”

He had to retrain himself to play the piano. The Times feature noted Newman is “one of the most distinctive piano stylists in pop music.” And just last month he needed more surgery, to repair a bad knee. The man is 80! But all is not lost — he has started writing songs again and wants to get back on stage.

I decided to write this tribute because of my long-time affection for the man and his music and because too often I wait until somebody dies to do so.

Through the years I’ve turned to his music so often in my home collection, or his songs have come up so many times on the radio or in a movie (“Toy Story”) or on TV (the “Monk” theme) that my wife and I frequently remark: “It always gets back to this guy!”

He got a second life when “Toy Story” came out in 1995 and our kids started singing along with “You’ve Got a Friend in Me.”

People might think Randy Newman wouldn’t be friendly in person. After all, his songs often sound angry — but that’s because he takes on the role of “the unreliable narrator” who hates short people or embraces being a red neck or thinks we should “drop the big one and pulverize them” (listen to his song “Political Science”).

When I arranged to review his show at the American Shakespeare Theater for the New Haven Register, I inquired if Newman might be receptive to granting a short interview backstage. A Warner Brothers publicity person warned me not to count on it. “Randy’s not in the greatest of moods.”

But after the show that night, despite the “Short People” embarrassment (he was still grousing about it, with a wry laugh), Newman agreed to sit down with several of us scribes to talk about his music and whatever else was on our minds. I was carrying with me a book of short stories, Barry Hannah’s “Airships,” and Newman, a voracious reader, picked it up. He looked at it thoughtfully and asked me if it was a good book and was Hannah a good writer. I remember the book title and its author all these years later only because Newman showed such a literary curiosity and immediately made such a personal connection with me.

Here he was, stripped down to just a white T-shirt, telling us, “I’m a writer. I’m not a great musician. I like books better than I like music.”

As journalists, we are trained not to butter up the people we interview, no matter how much we might admire our subject. I’m sure I wanted to cry out: “You ARE a great musician!” But instead I silently praised his modesty.

Describing his song-writing process, he said, “You get into it and it just sort of happens. I wish I knew how it happens, because I’d do it all the time.”

Talking about laboring to write new songs, he said, “I haven’t gotten going at all yet. I’m sick of myself agonizing about it all the time.”

Newman also expressed frustration over his inability to win broad commercial success, at least in this country. He said that during a recent tour of Europe, he discovered “They really liked me over there! I’m thinking of moving there…Maybe they think I don’t like America. I do.”

If Newman ever did move to Europe, it wasn’t for long. He remains in Los Angeles, and of course his song “I Love L.A.” is now a staple at sports events there. It was played at Dodgers Stadium last week when that team won the pennant.

Yeah, but even that song has its satirical bent because after all this is a Randy Newman song: “Look at that bum over there, he’s down on his knees!”

Sure, there’s a dark side to Newman. He was painfully shy in school and bullied because of his cross-eyed appearance; several surgeries were needed to fix this. And he says he is often reminded that Jewish people don’t quite fit in here. “To be Jewish in America is different,” he told an interviewer. “There’s a lack of comfort here for Jews, somehow. Is this really our country? And I think sometimes, maybe not.”

Reading this made me sad. I think of Randy Newman as a great chronicler of the American experience. I’m glad he’s still with us. I hope he works through the pain of songwriting and gives us more. Maybe we’ll even see him back on that stage again.