Is there a finer Songsmith? Stand aside Dylan, Simon, HMHB. He the man.
https://www.theguardian.com/music/2023/jan/05/randy-newmans-20-greatest-songs-ranked
Feeling Randy?
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I say again….
Oooops – sorry @tiggerlion
Surprised to see Rednecks feature on the Gruaniad list and never mind so high..
Nothing from Land of Dreams? Bad News From Home and Hurt Like I Do are monsters.
I do like this cover:
Ooo, and while I’m here:
I think Lsnd of Dreams is my favourite Randy album- certainly the one I have played most and that I still return to.
One of the greats, Awakenings Dexter’s Theme, may be the greatest happy-sad music ever composed for a movie score.
Ghosts is the most tragic song ever written, in a good way. Intentionally tragic to evoke pathos.
Although Sandman’s Coming Soon also effortlessly lives on the Happy-Sad, Desperately Tragic axis too, not for the faint of heart.
Now I think about it, “Marie’ qualifies in combination with its heart breaking sequel / companion piece from Johnny Cutler’s Birthday on the Good Old Boys CD resissue ‘Good Morning’.
The final track on his most recent record Wandering Boy.. I’m not ashamed to admit his fragile voice, those poignant chords and his tender affecting lyric: aching with nostalgia, tenderness and deep melancholy often leaves me in floods of tears.
What I’m saying is there isn’t much else quite like him in rockular music is there?
This is a beautiful, insightful and enlightening comment that I wish had been posted on *the other* thread.
This beauty from Faust deserves to be up there
It’ll always be this one for me. I’ve been singing my children to sleep to it since they were born and they can join in now. I loved it as a song for years before the kids came along and always will. The movie, of course, features a great turn from Mr. Newman as the Singing Bush.
This is another favourite song of my children. They like the Alan Price version but this was my introduction to it and probably my first exposure to Randy Newman…
Not in the list, but the lyric of Texas Girl at the Funeral of Her Father is a miracle of concision. This is every word of it.
It’s very rare that I prefer a cover version of a Randy Newman song to the original, but in the case of Texas Girl at the Funeral of Her Father, the definitive version, for me, is by Nic Jones, on the live album “In Search of Nic Jones”. Perfect.
Bloody hell Duke, you done it again!!
I have 12 Songs, Sail Away and the live album from that time, and enjoy them very much. I love Clarence White’s B-bending on the former.
I’m also very fond of his first album, the one with Love Story, Living Without You and I Think It’s Going to Rain today. It’s got an amazing bunch of session musicians on it, including Herb Ellis, James Burton, Jim Gordon and Carol Kaye, and also a vast orchestra. The combination is superb, and the orchestral arrangements show the influences of American composers like Samuel Barber and Aaron Copland. It’s a fascinating combination, the original version of I Think It’s Going to Rain Today being a case in point.
I’ll give it a listen. I have a feeling I have a couple more Randy albums recently acquired from thrift shops, and it may be amongst them. I’m away from home at the mo (staring at a turquoise ocean and white sand) so I will check out what I have when I get back. I have a feeling I also have the one with Short People.
Little Criminals. Apart from anything else , a fantastic sounding record. Play it on a good hi fi.
Seen him once, had tix for a subsequent tour. He cancelled for medical reasons. Alas I expect he wont return. Artists tend not to just pop over for a tour here. Too far, the flight too long.
“We’ll save Australia
Don’t want to hurt no kangaroo
We’ll build an all American amusement park there
They’ve got surfing, too“
Latest score Tigger 28 Lodestone 15
Yebbut but I started hours after him (and anyways he’s Tiggs and I’m Lodestone, Donovan to his Dylan, doesn’t worry me at all, not one bit, I’m not counting the comments, nosirree)
28-20, may get exciting
How’s the weather your way?
-17
What about Wandering Boy off Dark Matter? Gets me every time.
I’d point you to the other thread but it’s not allowed
Dont be lured into this petty comment counting Lodes. Just burn down the cornfield.
Rebekah or Coleen? Johnny or Amber? Harry or William? Tiggerlion or Lodestone? One has to choose a side. There can be no middle ground, no compromise, no neutrality.
I would like to distance myself from Gary’s comments (in fact I want to distance myself from Gary).
Tigger is a splendid chap and I can only apologise for starting this thread before scrolling down to discover he had read the Guardian before me.
In no way am I in any kind of competition with Tigger – getting more comments than him was never my intention. (Three more, just three more ..)
Human kindness is overflowing.
Nice Newman quote, by the way. Your perspicacity is only matched by your Northern bluffness.
I’m quite surprised that you think I was encouraging any sort of competition or competitiveness between the two of you. Where on earth in my comment did you manage to escavate such a bizarre interpretation from?
I’d like to publicly apologise to you personally and The Afterword in general. I have allowed my selfish quest for glory to cloud my always suspect judgement. After all what is victory ?
Victory, I think you will find , is mine. Mine.
Escavate? Sort yer typing out, feller!
Being a multilingually inclined sort of fellow, I was misled by the foreign word for excavate (scavare). Thus it was neither a typo nor a spelling mistake, but my vast range of knowledge that made me look like an idiot.
I thought you were speaking fluent Essex. Which wouldn’t be asseptable.
This has shades of HP v Mojo in the Beck v Blair postathon.
Except that you can’t have too many Randy Newman threads.
“Rand….I’m tired…”
Randy played piano and did the orchestral arrangement for this
I did not know that. But once you do…
We had tickets for a Randy Newman show in Stockholm about 12 years ago or something. He cancelled the tour for some reason. When he finally played the tour the following year, he rescheduled all of the dates except Stockholm.
Then, about 5 years ago, we bought tickets for another Randy Newman gig in Stockholm. He cancelled that tour, too.
Then about 3 years ago, we bought tickets for yet another Randy Newman gig in Stockholm. First he postponed because he’d hurt his back. Then he postponed again because of Covid. Then he postponed again because he had a neck operation. The gig was rescheduled for Wednesday, 25 January. That’s in two weeks’ time. Either that bastard is going to cancel again, or else I’ll be ill, and won’t be able to go. I know it. I won’t believe the gig will happen until he’s actually sitting at the piano in front of me.
I’ve just checked Randy’s website, and … guess what? He’s just postponed the gigs in Berlin and Groningen. Can Stockholm be far behind?
@duo01
Jesus, that doesn’t sound terribly good. Wonder if the rest of the tour including his Fri Feb 24 show in Dublin will go the same way.
Won over by the board’s two Randy threads, I’ve just mentally readied myself to fork out effectively E400 (with hotels, trains, meals, etc) for the opportunity to see the old curmudgeon for the second and probably final time.
Loudon Wainwright’s recent tour was apparently a financial disaster, poor ticket sales. Maybe the same thing is happening with Randy ?
Dublin almost SRO. Irrelevant if other venues are struggling to put bums on seats as he’s hardly come over to Europe to play two shows.
He’s cancelled the whole European tour due to “having an operation”
You’re joking. What with COVID, his knee and his neck, that’s about the fifth or sixth time he’s cancelled Dublin these last 10 years or so.
Doubt if I’ll waste money buying tickets for him again
From his Twitter
I knew it.
I just knew it.