The Entroporium

Continuing The Entroporium’s series touching on some of its favorite New Orleans music…

Randy Newman isn’t really perceived as a New Orleans artist, but his impressive body of work often revisits his hometown both in content and in tone.

Unfortunately, Newman is best known to non-aficionados for his soundtrack work and some of his jokier songs like “Short People,” “I Love LA” and “It’s Money That Matters.” Those have their place in the grand scheme, but the albums that really make Newman worth discussing are the three he released in the early 1970s: Good Old Boys, 12 Songs and Sail Away. Utterly unafraid of taking on big issues in his songs, Newman is one of the great Baby Boomer satirists; in my head, I always figured that a Kurt Vonnegut novel would sound like a Randy Newman record.

At times, his incisive humor and economical songwriting would cut almost too close to the bone. Take “Sail Away,” surely one of the loveliest songs ever recorded. A beautiful lullaby to the Naked Ear, except that the song’s narrator has something more incendiary on his mind; it comes out over the course of the song that he’s a slave boat captain with designs on luring unsuspecting Africans onboard and into a new life :

In America every man is free
To take care of his home and his family

You’ll be as happy as a monkey in a monkey tree

You’re all gonna be an American

By making the song so beautiful and lushly orchestrated, you too are lulled into the trap; it could be many spins before you realize the horror that the narrator is proposing to you, the listener. It’s an amazing songwriting gambit that few performers have accomplishe. The elegance and wit of the trap make “Holidays In The Sun” and “California Uber Alles” seem like fourth grade haikus by comparison.

Today’s song has been around the blogosphere quite a bit lately for obvious reasons, but it’s strong enough to bear repeating here. I love the image of the “little fat man” that follows President Coolidge around as he tours the flood damage. If only Michaels Brown or Chertoff were indeed ‘little fat men,’ the circle would be complete.

[Soundtrack]
Randy Newman – Louisiana 1927.mp3 (original version from Good Old Boys)

Salon Brilliant Careers: Randy Newman (no day pass necessary!)
NPR: Randy Newman, Live in Studio 4A
The Complete Idiot’s Guide To Randy Newman at Jefito.com