Transcript of Interview:
David Byrne: Your music sounds very, quote,
"American," the various things that are thrown
together. What's American music?
Randy Newman: I could name composers. I could
think, harmonically, Copland and the open fifths,
maybe that's American, maybe that comes from
Scotch-Irish, folk music, I don't know what it
comes from. Charles Ives and banging all the
things together. His favorite song was one of my
favorite songs, "Columbia, the Gem of the Ocean."
I've used it, he's used it. Newman and Ives.
And it's John Phillip Sousa, it's Joplin, it's
Gershwin, it's Ives, Leonard Bernstein. My uncle
Lionel used to have nicknames for the composers
and they were often quite vicious. His nickname
for Elmer Bernstein was "the wrong Bernstein."
He's a very talented composer but my uncle was
vicious.
David Byrne: How was it seeing those guys
working on sound stages when you were a kid?
Randy Newman: Well, it was impressive, my
uncle Al would be conducting a big orchestra and
he'd be doing All About Eve, I was too young for
Song of Bernadette or How Green Was My
Valley, but I remember King and I, I was very
fortunate to hear, to have in my ear, a tremendously
great orchestra. I heard these tremendous string
players when I was five years old. It was a
fortunate thing, and to hear it in the same room. I
knew it was a big deal. It didn't make me love
music. Nothing's done that yet. But I was
impressed.
David Byrne: Well, you did it with some of the
songs, but on the movie stuff you really got to work
with a large orchestra.
Randy Newman: That's why I do it.
David Byrne: Just for the thrill?
Randy Newman: Just for that. And the money is all
right. But, just for the writing and for the privilege
of working with people that I don't play well
enough to work with. These are some of the best
musicians in the world and I can write for them,
but I couldn't play. I'd be thrilled if I could play
piano well enough to play with an orchestra like
that.
Hey, you've actually become a Talking Head!
David Byrne: (laughter) Yes.
Randy Newman: It suddenly dawned on me!
(laughter) Did you notice that?
David Byrne: I know, I never want to say that, but
it's true.
Randy Newman: All right! (laughter)
David Byrne: (laughter) It's like the name that
you're given when you're born, there's your destiny
right there.
Randy Newman: Yeah! Man, a lot of songs I
wrote that I thought, "This isn't me" turned out to
be very close. Much closer than I ever would have
dreamed.
David Byrne: Do you see yourself in the character
more than you would like to?
Randy Newman: More than I would like to, yeah.
David Byrne: Do people ever ask, "Well, why
don't you write about yourself? Everybody else
does."
Randy Newman: No, strangely enough they don't. I
do it occasionally, I try to, as an exercise, but my
style is my style. It's the wrong style for the
medium. There's something basically wrong with
the "I" not being I. I always say, "Well, why, if
they can do it in a short story and in fiction and in
movies, Martin Scorcese isn't, you know, in his
movies. John Updike isn't writing about John
Updike. Why do I have to be the 'I'? But, there's
something about it that after centuries of people
doing it that way, you expect it to be revelatory in
some sort of way. You're just not waiting.
If I were driving down the freeway and listening
and I heard one of my songs, irony is a tough thing
on a car radio. America just loves irony. Ah,
they're crazy about it. I mean I get showered with
-- "More irony! More irony! Ah, we love it!"
David Byrne: Are you working on another record?
Randy Newman: Yeah. I am as a matter of fact. At
the moment. Done the basic tracks. With Mitchell
Froom and it's moving along. A fatal thing to ask
yourself about any work of art as you advance in
years is, "Who is this for?" That's what I wonder
about. I'm writing a song about Karl Marx; how he
would have discovered that the world isn't fair. I'm
living in a big house and serious composers are
living in garrets. But, I just wonder, "What for, you
know?"
Unfortunately, in the studio, lately, I've been seeing
Billboard which I haven't seen in years, the
magazine, and now that they have real numbers,
Soundscan numbers, it's become a brutal business.
It's #163, #183, boom, you're gone forever. You
work on something for years -- they used to be
able to lie to you and say, "Oh, we just shipped 65
hundred to Charlotte." But with Soundscan, you
look and it's 13 records and it's a brutal thing to do
to people in show business.
