In 1974, Randy Newman opened his album “Good Old Boys” with “Rednecks,” a song about American racism so honest and shocking — not least because Newman brandishes the N-word in the voice of his narrator — that half a century later, it still feels hot to the touch. A bluesy country-rock lope with perversely creamy backing vocals by the Eagles, “Rednecks” reveals not only the hate in one man’s heart but also the means by which prejudice becomes part of a nation’s core. It’s just one of the many songs Newman has written that probe “the shortcomings of the American character,” as Robert Hilburn puts it.
Hilburn, The Times’ pop music critic from 1970 to 2005, takes up Newman’s life and work in a new book, “A Few Words in Defense of Our Country: The Biography of Randy Newman.” Written with the participation of the artist himself — Newman sat for hours of interviews and connected Hilburn with friends, family members and collaborators — the bio tracks Newman’s winding path from teenage pop tunesmith to ’70s cult-fave singer-songwriter to Oscar-winning film-music maestro. (Scoring movies is a family business for the native Angeleno, whose uncles Alfred, Lionel and Emil were big during the Golden Age of Hollywood.)
Yet Hilburn, who’s also written books about Paul Simon and Johnny Cash, builds “A Few Words” around his belief in the sociopolitical importance of songs as sharp, as perceptive and often as darkly hilarious as “Sail Away,” “Baltimore,” “Louisiana 1927” and “It’s Money That I Love”; he also digs into the trap-door depths of Newman’s two famous quasi-novelty hits: “Short People,” which somehow reached No. 2 in 1978, and the deathless “I Love L.A.,” which still marks home-game wins by the Lakers and the Dodgers. (To judge by streams, Newman’s biggest actual hit is “You’ve Got a Friend In Me,” from the Pixar movie “Toy Story,” which has been played more than 327 million times on Spotify.)
Newman, who turned 81 last week, spoke about Hilburn’s biography and about his music from his home in Pacific Palisades, where he’s been recovering from a series of medical procedures, including three knee operations. “Like I had three legs,” he said with a laugh. “But it’s coming along. I’m feeling stronger.”
You learn anything from Hilburn’s book?
A few things. Mainly, what was going on in the record company. Nobody told me much. After the first question I asked about sales, I never asked another one.
You’d heard enough bad news.
I mean, I really care about numbers — love baseball statistics and the populations of different towns. So I was interested. My problem was that I decided to follow another artist starting out the same time I was [to compare sales numbers against]. I picked James Taylor, who I’d never heard of, and within a few weeks, he began to pull away from me. Next time I did it, I ended up looking at Christopher Cross, who sold like 10 million records on his first try.
What made you agree to cooperate with Hilburn?
When I met him, he was very nice. He did Paul and Johnny Cash, and I was honored to be considered somewhat in the same ballpark. God, that’s pathetic. But, you know, Paul’s real fussy — I’m not as strict as he is. So I figured if he allowed it, what the hell?
There’s a photo that goes around on social media every now and again that shows you, Bob Dylan, Lou Reed and Tom Petty outside a trailer backstage at Farm Aid in 1985.
I know the picture. They’re all looking the other way.
What do you take from that photo?
That they weren’t particularly impressed by me. Petty was a great guy. Dylan I knew through the years. And Lou Reed was real nice to my son in a record store one time.
Do you see yourself as the odd man out in that group?
I don’t know. They’re all pretty serious writers — cared about their stuff. And I was too. Why does the photo recirculate all the time? Because it’s an unusual gathering?
That, and I think there’s some visual comedy in it.
For me to be the most animated person in a photograph is a real upset.
Would you say you use beautiful melodies to soften an acerbic lyric or use acerbic lyrics to toughen up a beautiful melody?
Neither. If it doesn’t fit, I don’t do it. I don’t know whether the tunes and stuff made things more palatable, but none of it strikes me as being wrong, unless I made a mistake, which God knows I did.
Such as?
Oh, in a really rough song like “Old Man,” I couldn’t resist putting an espressivo on the strings [in the sheet music] — this is so boring, we’ll be losing your readers — where it probably should have been flat. I wouldn’t do the synthesizers on “Born Again” now. But I don’t think it was wrong at the time.
“Born Again’s” cover almost makes that album criticism-proof. The guy’s got dollar signs on his eyes.
You’d think so. But a lot of people didn’t like it. They didn’t know who I was, so it just looked like some a—hole in Kiss makeup.
Technically, they could’ve known who you were and still thought that.
And they’d have been right.
Fair to say you have a self-destructive streak? You don’t title a pop song “Sigmund Freud’s Impersonation of Albert Einstein in America” without being at least a little masochistic.
I knew very soon that certain stuff wasn’t gonna appeal to everybody. But I didn’t care if I thought it was all right. That song is maybe a bit of a stretch. I thought it was funny. I liked them both being in the same town, like in Tom Stoppard’s “Travesties,” with all the historical figures. [E.L.] Doctorow did it in “Ragtime” too.
What’s a song of yours that you’re particularly proud of?
I did some stuff on the last three albums that felt like an advance, in some ways: the song about the mother and the father [“Lost Without You”] and the thing about the Kennedys [“Brothers”]. If I may toot my own horn here, I don’t think I’ve slipped much. I know the second album got great reviews, but it’s not as good as the last three were.
All kinds of singers have done your songs: “I Think It’s Going to Rain Today” alone has been sung by Barbra Streisand, Dusty Springfield, Joe Cocker and Françoise Hardy. What does your distinctive voice bring to the material?
I think over the years I became a pretty good actor, particularly on a song like “The Great Debate.” And anytime I get a chance to break into a gospel-style thing, I’ll do it. You know, I’ve been taking singing lessons for the first time in the last two months, trying to get back into shape.
How’s that going?
I sound like a tight-ass tenor. It’s improved my accuracy and my breathing and all that stuff. I don’t know whether it’ll damage my career or not.
You wrote a rap song, “Masterman and Baby J,” for 1988’s “Land of Dreams” album. Would you do that now?
Yeah, because I like a lot of the rap stuff since then: Eminem, the Notorious B.I.G., a number of people. It seems as if they have a real wide latitude to say stuff. I take those liberties anyway. But I’d give it a try.
Did you solicit advice from any established rappers in 1988?
As I recall, I did. I knew Ice-T a little bit and asked him how I sounded. I can’t remember what he said.
The rapping’s not bad.
I thought it was all right. I mean, I also thought it was liable to embarrass me in a week.
The internet tells me you last performed “Rednecks” in 2016.
The excuse I had for using the word is that the guy in the song would use it.
But now that feels insufficient?
Maybe, yeah. I might still do it but only if I could explain what I’m doing. Or if it’s for a crowd that knows me very well. I’d do it in San Francisco, for instance, but maybe not in St. Louis. Hard to say.
Does having to explain the song kill what it’s trying to do?
No. But it’s a pain in the ass if you’re moving along at some kind of pace.
In 2017, you told Marc Maron on his podcast that you’d advise younger musicians to hold onto their publishing. This year, you sold yours to Litmus Music. What changed your mind?
What changed my mind is that I know whose songs they are. I would hope that “Think It’s Gonna Rain” doesn’t get used in a beer commercial. But I can just look the other way to some degree. I imagine that bothers fans who buy the Neil Young talk about commercials. But, you know, I can’t play to 80,000 people, and Neil can. He doesn’t have to sell anything. I’ve thought a lot about money, even though I never wrote like I thought about it, and I’ve written about it a number of times, mainly from the slant that it’s too important in the world. In the ’60s, people acted like money wasn’t important, which was nice. But you get a little older, and that doesn’t quite obtain.
Other important songwriters have sold the rights to their songs recently: Dylan, Simon, Bruce Springsteen. Did that influence your thinking?
“Well, if he’s doing it, I’ll do it too”? I never thought that exactly. But I did start hearing music in commercials. You could tell that someone had sold something.
Did you try to build certain limitations into your deal regarding what could be done with your songs?
I talked to someone about it. God knows whether it’ll have any real effect. I really do hope they wouldn’t use “Think It’s Gonna Rain,” because it’s kind of important to some people. When they used to ask for “You’ve Got a Friend” in commercials, I would say to Disney, “Don’t do it,” and they’d often abide by that. Not always — sometimes they used it themselves. But I didn’t want to do it because kids sing along with it, you know? It’s nice to do it for a crowd that way. I didn’t want them to be disabused of that.
Last year, another piano-playing songwriter from Los Angeles — Warren Zevon — was nominated for induction into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. But he didn’t get in.
Inexcusable.
You were inducted in 2013. Were you surprised?
I was surprised. But I was happy about it. It’s a big deal, you know. Maybe it shouldn’t be that important, but it is.
Do you bother to vote on things like the Rock Hall and the Grammys?
Sometimes. If I get nominated for something, I’ll generally vote for myself.
Your old friend Don Henley gave your induction speech at the hall. What do the two of you talk about?
Almost anything. I mean, there’s probably stuff he wouldn’t choose to talk to me about. And there’s stuff I wouldn’t talk to him about. But he’s funny, and I can make him laugh, which is good for me. Sometimes I prefer people as an audience more than anything else — including my wife and kids.
Got a couple more for you. Which seems worse: Your mind going but your body’s OK, or your body going but your mind’s OK?
Mind going. I’ve been all right body-wise at various times of my life and messed up at other times, so I know the feeling of being out of shape. And being in pain is a drag, it really is. But the mind — it’s a terrible thing to be less acute than you were. I’m certain I am, but I don’t necessarily notice it.
Maybe that’s the trick: Whatever you lose in mental acuity, you lose the same amount in self-awareness.
That may be wishful thinking. I think you still know if you can’t remember something.
Your most recent album came out in 2017. Think you’ll make another?
I hope so. I keep trying to write. It’s harder than it used to be.
Have you landed on a reason why?
Not really. One time I talked to Paul McCartney on the phone — this is like 40 years before I met him in person. He asked me how writing was going. I was like, “It’s really rough,” which is what it feels like now. He said, “You don’t exactly have anything to live up to,” and at first I thought, “That’s not very nice.” But he was right. He was a goddamn Beatle — that pressure is different. Now I feel there’s more pressure than there was. And it isn’t like I don’t care. I still care a great deal.
Ever wish you cared less?
Yes. I’ve tried it as a writing device: “Just let it go — it’s not so bad.”
Do you plan to tour again?
I’ll do that before I do anything else. I like it, and I think I was good at it. It’s been a while. I think I’ve got the playing back. And I sound like Pavarotti too.
