20 Questions: Randy Newman

Although many critics and musicians believe that Randy Newman is the ranking satirist and the major talent among living American songwriters, he has received most attention for his score for Milos Forman's "Ragtime," which earned an Academy Award nomination, and for a funny song about a lunatic who hales "Short People." "Trouble in Paradise," Newman's most recent LP, includes "I Love L.A.," a bouncy send-up of his home town, and a disturbing, edgy vision of Cape Town, South Africa, as well as a cluster of societal woes and personal miseries. Although a recluse at heart, Newman, who comes from a family of musicians, met with David Sheff in Beverly Hills. "I asked him about his much-reported eye problem, which causes him to see double," reports Sheff. "He shrugged it off. 'It's no big deal,' he said. 'I can see fine.' To prove it, he focused on me and said. 'I know which one is you.' He pointed toward the window."

1.

[Q] Playboy: What is the trouble in paradise?

[A] Newman: You know, places like L.A., Miami, Cape Town are supposed to be, and probably used to be, like Bora-Bora or some other paradise. But things went wrong. But I do love L.A. It's not the most beautiful place in the world, but I love the weather and everybody I know well lives here. I admit that the song is a little ambiguous; the streets I picked are not the most beautiful, and I took a few shots here and there--like the bum--but, basically, I do love L.A. I love the Beach Boys. Like I said in the song, "Rollin' down the Imperial Highway / With a big nasty redhead at my side...." That wouldn't be bad.

2.

[Q] Playboy: Do you like to be in the center of the music business? Do you take meetings at the Polo Lounge?

[A] Newman: I've been to a meeting there, but I didn't get into how awful it was that I was doing it. I didn't give a shit where I was. Except a lot of nice-looking women were there in hats. Black hats. I like that. I may go back there.

Otherwise, I don't pay attention to the music business. I don't read the magazines or look at the charts. If I were in the magazines occasionally, I might. When Short People was a hit, I subscribed. But, really, I'm not interested in that at all.

3.

[Q] Playboy: On Trouble in Paradise, the list of background singers is pretty impressive: Linda Ronstadt, Wendy Waldman, Paul Simon, Jennifer Warnes, Don Henley, Bob Seger, Rickie Lee Jones, Lindsey Buckingham, Christine McVie. Why did they agree to sing on your record? Did they need the money?

[A] Newman: A lot of them like me, I suppose. I don't exactly know why, but they like what I do. I think. You should check. Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe they did it as charity.

Linda and Jennifer have done my songs. Other people called Lenny [Waronker] and Russ [Titelman--Newman's producers] and asked if I needed background things. I can't do backgrounds. I sound like a bunch of sheep. I didn't know some of those people. I like Seger's stuff, but I didn't know he liked mine. Henley called; we're friends. I sort of knew Simon. I knew Rickie Lee. And they were great to work with. They all have real enthusiasm for music in general. They worked really long hours, to where I would get embarrassed and say, "Don't you have to go to a fitting or something?"

4.

[Q] Playboy: Because of your song, a lot of people think you really do hate short people. Does it bother you when people misinterpret you?

[A] Newman: Sometimes, though it may be my own fault--the execution. I remember in high school, you analyzed poetry and some of the hippie teachers would say, "That's fine, that's fine--however you see it is fine," but that isn't fine with me. I set out to do something, and that's what I want people to get. Sometimes I don't care. A song comes--boom! Sometimes there is a lot of work with your head: "Is this funny? Or is it merely vulgar? If it's merely vulgar, why do it?"

5.

[Q] Playboy: Your sound track for Ragtime was nominated for an Academy Award. How did that project come to be?

[A] Newman: After turning down many movies, I agreed to do that one because I knew it had great music potential.

I had read the book. Some of it I did in advance of the shooting, like when you see musicians playing in the movie--they actually had to be playing something--but the rest was done afterward. In some ways, it was easier than writing my own songs, because I didn't have to pull something right out of the air, but in other respects it was harder, because I was dealing with someone else's ideas and writing for an orchestra--which I really liked. It's a real art to match and enhance what is going on up there. You try to help tell the story. You make the romance mean a little more. If the guy is looking happy driving his car, you try to make happy music--a real difficult job for me.

I'm not used to having to deal with other people when I work. I do what I want to do. But film is a director's medium. Music is about 14th in importance. If the director wants to take a piece of music and cut it down or move it from here to there, he does it. So I wasn't entirely overjoyed with the experience, but I did all right, I thought. And I was rather proud of the job I did. In the time of the movie, there were fewer chords than they know now, so I liked it.

6.

[Q] Playboy: Your uncle Alfred won nine Academy Awards for his scores for such movies as The King and I and Alexander's Ragtime Band. Did that make your Oscar nomination particularly gratifying?

[A] Newman: I guess I was gratified by it. I knew I wasn't going to win, but I went for a weird experience, and it was a weird experience. I sat next to Johnny Williams, and Liberace did a medley that included our music. He played Ragtime and Raiders of the Lost Ark. You know what they have at the Academy Awards? They have people who sit in your chairs when you're gone. Johnny Williams and I went to the bathroom and--ppfffttt!--two people were in our seats. That way, if the camera pans the audience, there are no empty seats.

7.

[Q] Playboy: Since Ragtime, do you follow music written for Broadway and for films?

[A] Newman: I don't enjoy Broadway music. I haven't seen a Broadway musical I have enjoyed. Oh, Fiddler on the Roof, years ago. How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying. The movie of The King and I. I did admire the music in A Chorus Line. But I saw Cats and Sweeney Todd and actually saw (continued on page 122)Randy Newman(continued from page 117) Chorus Line, and I tell you, I felt like I was from Yugoslavia and didn't understand English. I felt like I used to feel at high school football games when I'd be getting loaded in the corner and the crowd would be going, "Yea! Yeà!" and I didn't feel a part of it. I wanted to--I'm telling you--because I paid $29 or something for a ticket. At Cats, I kept looking at the price of the ticket. To me, there is more in Kiss on My List than in all of Cats.

Movies are another story. They are the great art form of the 20th Century. One of my favorite scores is my uncle Al's How Green Was My Valley. I like his Song of Bernadelle. I like Superman, by Williams. I like Patton, by Jerry Goldsmith, and Stagecoach. Psycho, by Bernard Herrmann. Chariots of Fire was a good score. I noticed it only the second time I saw the movie. The first time, I was too bitter, because of the Academy Award [laughs.] I wouldn't have done it that way. It was the Twenties, and I would have had an English band perform the score instead of synthesizers, but then it wouldn't have won the Academy Award and the picture wouldn't have made 80 billion dollars. There are a lot of good scores. I like Gone with the Wind, by Max Steiner. Leonard Bernstein did a good job for On the Waterfront. When I go to movies, I notice the scores more than anything else--which is bad, because you can't tell whether a score is good out of context of the movie. A good score shouldn't jump out at you.

8.

[Q] Playboy: Are there performers and songwriters whose work you particularly follow?

[A] Newman: Yeah. Neil Young. I don't know about his new computer stuff, but I may grow to like it. I don't know whether he can compete with people who have grown up with synthesized brains. It's sort of rudimentary music for someone who is as complex and talented an artist as he is. I like Seger. Emmylou Harris. George Jones. I admire Hall and Oates and Michael McDonald very much for writing those things that are complex harmonically.

Lyrically, there are only a few people I pay much attention to: Young, Rick James, though he only did one really good record I love. Van Morrison. I like Rickie Lee's lyrics. Prince's, X's. I admire some stuff critics absolutely hate. Rod Stewart. Some people don't like his personal or something, but I take him seriously, because he can relate a lot of information in a short amount of time, which is very hard to do. He is expressing something that is true. He brags a little and stuff, but Only a Boy, on his last record, is a very good song. He is the best of English rock. People won't like that, but that's the way I feel. Elvis Costello may be better, but I can't hear the words all the time. I bought a songbook, so I'm looking.

9.

[Q] Playboy: What music did you grow up on?

[A] Newman: Mostly classical. I always studied music and figured I'd be a musician. And then Ray Charles, Fats Domino and that sort of R & B. Sonny Boy Williamson. John Lee Hooker. And when I got into high school, the Beach Boys.

10.

[Q] Playboy: You're the first to admit that your work hasn't sold that well, with the exception of Short People. Does it bother you after so many years in the business?

[A] Newman: Yes. It's a drag. I would like to be able to go on this tour and not worry about the poor promoter's taking a beating. It would be nice to be a part of mainstream America, the way Seger is--you know, to be on the stations. I listen to his albums and my albums, and there isn't a great deal of difference in how hard they rock or in the content of the lyrics. I mean, he's got a bigger voice, but the disparity isn't the difference between having a number-one record in the country and not getting played. Programers don't think I'm right for rock radio or something, but I don't know why. I sell records in Germany, France, Holland, Belgium. Switzerland and Norway and stuff. In Europe, the record is number 20 or something, and here it is number 8,000,000. They are really serious about music there. They listen intently. Radio isn't as strict. They aren't afraid to play something different. Maybe stations here think that if they played my records, people would turn off the radio or something. It's a little frustrating, but it doesn't bother me too much. But my songs should do better here. The stuff is real American, it seems to me.

11.

[Q] Playboy: Is there a certain satisfaction that comes with being out on the fringe?

[A] Newman: Well, there is satisfaction in appealing to the people I appeal to and in being critically received the way I have been, but it's not enough for me anymore. I can't change the way I write, but I would change anything else. [Thoughtfully] I'm whinning, aren't I? You should cut some of this whining about not selling records. I hate whining, don't you?

12.

[Q] Playboy: Is the darker side of things--the trouble in paradise rather than paradise itself--the side you see the most?

[A] Newman: You see, I don't necessarily know the places I am writing about well at all. Of those on this record, I've been to Miami once. I've never been to Cape Town, and after Christmas in Capetown, I doubt I'll ever go; I don't think they'll invite me. I know San Francisco pretty well and I know L.A. very well. But for Baltimore, I just went through the place once and immediately went home and attacked it. Of course, there is a danger that your observations may be totally inaccurate. Before Bertolt Brecht had ever seen America, he had done this stuff about Chicago and gangsters. It wasn't true, but it was more interesting than the stuff he wrote after he had seen it. I remember seeing this one side of Baltimore in National Geographic: all the white-marble stairs and the pretty porches. It was just great-looking. But when I wrote Baltimore, it was about a different side. And I had no case when the mayor was angry about my song and Miss Baltimore gave me a bunch of letters saying things like, "Randy Newman is not human." I had no case, because I didn't know the town well.

13.

[Q] Playboy: You have described the classic Randy Newman song as being "a real pretty song with nasty intent." Does that still apply?

[A] Newman: Sometimes I've written real pretty songs, you know. I've never thought of my songs as particularly nasty. I've always thought that the audience is better than the people in my songs. Almost everyone is, in fact.

14.

[Q] Playboy: One theme that has pervaded your music, from Sail Away and Good Old Boys to Trouble in Paradise, is racism. Do you remember when you first became aware of it?

[A] Newman: I remember it very well. I was five or six, walking in New Orleans with my mother, and I saw a water fountain that said Colored and one that said White. I asked my mother what that meant. It was a shock. I didn't cry, but I couldn't understand it. I saw the same thing on an ice-cream truck that had two doors on the back. One said White and one said (continued on page 180)Randy Newman(continued from page 122) Colored. Such a strange idea did not jibe with ice cream.

That is why it is so surprising to me that some change has come about. It's still awful for blacks in this country. I don't think it will ever be the way it should be really, but the South has improved. You can see it. And that's something.

People in the North think they are so superior, while their cities are racist as ever. It hits me when I am touring. I go into a town and, invariably, you know who is going to live in the worst neighborhood. It's naïve to think that it's going to get better, but in this country, it just shouldn't be. It hurts. You know, when you go to Germany and you look for the slums, you can't find them. It's getting a little worse there now, but nothing compared with here. As an American, that hurts. I'm always happy when I see some slums outside Paris. I can't help it. I still tend to think that everything should somehow be better here. Because Americans are the nicest people in the world. [Laughs]

15.

[Q] Playboy: Are you the pessimistic and depressed artist your songs suggest?

[A] Newman: I don't like to write. I feel great when I get something going. I feel terrible when I don't have something going. But my subject matter is not all depressing, and I'm not depressed when I write about it. I'm happier than most people I see. I have every reason to be. I live in a nice place. I have a nice family. I don't have to work nine to five for a bad boss. I don't have a lot of the problems that regular people have. The big problem with what I do is that I can't guarantee I can do it. If you sell insurance, you sort of know how to sell insurance. But I don't know how I write songs. I can't go out and say, "I'll write you a song" and then just do it. But my life is pretty good, actually. And I never forget it. This is not as bad as working.

16.

[Q] Playboy: How can you write songs about regular people if you don't live like one?

[A] Newman: Good question. Some people end up writing songs about being on the road and the taxman. But I watch it. I'm isolated. I don't have friends in this business, particularly. I see the rest of the world. I see it in neighbors and I read and I go to the laundry. I watch for it.

17.

[Q] Playboy: What kinds of things do you worry about?

[A] Newman: My work. My kids. What kind of father I am. And that's it. I don't worry too much about getting bombed or nuked or the economy or Reagan. They sure do in Europe, man. I mean, they are really scared. I think he's crazy, but I found myself defending him over there. I couldn't believe it. I'd say, "Ah, don't worry, he's all right."

"What do you mean he's all right! He's going to blow everybody up! He wants to put nukes in my back yard!"

I said, "Naah. He'll be gone soon. Don't worry about it."

It's like I said: We believe our country is the best place in the world, and so we defend it even when it's ridiculous. For me, it's hard enough dealing with three kids who are different and a wife and people.

18.

[Q] Playboy: What is your family like?

[A] Newman: I've got three kids. A 15-year-old, a 12-year-old and a five-year-old. And a wife I've been married to for 16 years. Mexican maids. Stableboys. Three butlers. No, really, just the five of us. The oldest kid is into punk music. He plays the drums, wears an earring, has all his hair cut off. Nice boy, though. He's probably the best-looking person who ever did that to himself. It's usually an excuse to be ugly, but he's real good-looking. So he plays drums and used to sing in a band that fell apart. It was called Smashed Infant. He's against the Army and the police. I asked him, "Why go after such an easy target?" And he hates hippies. How can you hate such nice, friendly people? He and the band did have some good songs. At least, they were genuinely angry. I always thought the name was a little too obvious. They changed their name to Armed Response. Now it's Civil Defense or something.

I had to punish him for something the other day. I had to tell him, "You can't get your hair cut." Honest. I couldn't believe it. That was punishment for him. He thinks Woodstock is a million laughs. I knew it would happen. It's a reaction. It just happened so fast. It seems to me that I was just 14 and I was in the Sixties and had long hair and purple curtains everywhere and dope. Like San Francisco still is. He thinks I'm all right, though, 'cause I say fuck occasionally in a song.

The middle kid does very well in school. He likes Men at Work. The youngest one will sit through a whole opera if I tell him the story.

Being a parent is a tough job. There is no training for it. I think we're doing a better job with this last one than we did the first time around. We believed in all the first time around. We believed in all that let-him-do-his-own-thing stuff and sent him to a free school and all, which was current at the time. But there has to be some sort of structure, I've discovered. It seemed like the right thing to do. We were really trying all the time. But love and good intentionsl aren't enough. You have to know what you're doing. We jerked him around all the time.

19.

[Q] Playboy: What is it like for your family living with Randy Newman?

[A] Newman: It's all right. He's sort of a remote figure in his room, reading. I'm not bad, a little selfish. Like, I'll eat too much for dinner and want to read or lie down or something and they'll say, "Daddy, let's play chess." Now, playing chess with a five-year-old is an experience all its own. But I try to do it. So all in all, he's not a bad guy.

20.

[Q] Playboy: What do you think when people call you one of the best living American songwriters?

[A] Newman: It's not going to buy me a cup of coffee anywhere. When I was a kid, boy, I wanted that. I thought it would be great if people who knew music would really think I was great. And I got that. And sometimes you get your dream and you ask, "What do I have now?" But I'm grateful. And they're probably right. I'm probably one of the best--but what do I know?

"You should cut some of this whining about not selling records. I hate whining, don't you?"

"The big problem with what I do is that I can't guarantee I can do it. I don't know how I write songs."