Randy Newman

Presenter0:00

Hello, I'm Kirsty Young, and this is a podcast from the Desert Island Discs archive. For rights reasons, we've had to shorten the music.

Presenter0:08

The programme was originally broadcast in two thousand eight.

Presenter0:27

My castaway this week is the singer-songwriter and composer Randy Newman. He is a master of modern American music. His peers regard him as standing shoulder to shoulder with the likes of Cole Porter and George Gershwin. They say he may well be the greatest living songwriter that America has produced, though his high satirical style with songs like Short People have sometimes got him into hot water. His film scores have won him an Academy Award and numerous Grammys. Yet, despite this, the man himself is typically downbeat about the appeal of his acutely elegiac lyricism and soaring movie soundtracks. He says simply

Presenter1:03

I've been a pretty good musician. Being a pretty good musician was you did say that.

Speaker 31:07

What was that?

Randy Newman1:09

Uh

Presenter1:09

Third.

Randy Newman1:09

Uh

Presenter1:09

Are you happy with that now?

Randy Newman1:11

Yeah, I'm a very good probably qualified with a probably a composer.

Randy Newman1:17

That outside.

Presenter1:18

And I've also heard, and I'm not sure if this is true, that you you don't really relish being interviewed.

Randy Newman1:24

No, I like being interviewed. This was the most difficult sort of preparation for any interview I've ever done. This was hard, really. Because of the ace. It made me think I wouldn't take any music.

Presenter1:38

Why? Because it's better to have nothing than to just have a

Randy Newman1:40

Well,'cause the thing is, it's never been exactly wh where I went for relaxation, you know. Like I'd watch television or when I go to sleep at night I like a voice going on that isn't my own. So, you know, I I end up listening to actually the the uh BBC News, which they have on at like one in the morning there.

Presenter2:00

So that's you listen to the World Service to get you away from the market.

Randy Newman2:02

I listen to World Services, I go to sleep.

Presenter2:04

Yeah.

Randy Newman2:04

Uh

Presenter2:05

And what about uh this is also I mean, with somebody like you who has this legendary status within music, we we we think we know the person, we don't really know the person. You you seem pretty affable to me. You you have a reputation for being grumpy.

Randy Newman2:16

It is for

Randy Newman2:18

No, I'm not I'm not grumpy as a person, I don't think. Never have been. I mean people figure I'm grumpy because I'm, you know.

Randy Newman2:26

from my songs where um not sunshine and moonbeams and rainbows particularly.

Presenter2:33

So you think you're a pretty upbeat guy?

Randy Newman2:35

Upbeat.

Randy Newman2:37

New. I would say upbeat, but in general, hello and thank you and friendly, not let me out of here.

Presenter2:45

And what about this obsessiveness that you elicit in fans? I mean, people who like you really, really, really like you. You know, they wait often for years, as we know, for these new albums to come out.

Randy Newman2:56

Well

Randy Newman2:58

For that I'm sorry. I mean I should have produced more than I did. Schubert only lived to be thirty one. I mean I I'm sorry to use my name in the same sentence, but I mean he lived to be like thirty one. And I think he did more in his last year than I've done. And he was sick.

Randy Newman3:14

I don't know why that is, but I I I wish they're I'd produce

Randy Newman3:18

More.

Presenter3:19

Well, let's start by taking you through these painful choices. What's your first track that you've chosen today?

Randy Newman3:24

The first track is one of the late Beethoven quartets. They're all great. Everything he wrote almost. This is uh one thirty five uh in F major with the Hollywood string quartet played in the studio orchestra at uh Twentieth Century Fox. And I worked with a few of them.

Randy Newman3:42

And

Randy Newman3:43

Many people think that their versions of the late Beethoven quartets are the best versions, and that would make it, since it's some of the best music ever written.

Randy Newman3:52

about the best thing that ever came out of Hollywood.

Randy Newman3:55

Unless you like movies.

Presenter4:56

The Hollywood String Quartet playing part of the third movement of Beethoven's String Quartet, number sixteen in F major, and chosen not just because of the perfection of the music, but because indeed the players are personal to you, people that you had not been in with.

Randy Newman5:06

A few people that you had met in and worked with? I didn't know.

Randy Newman5:20

that they were sort of world renowned, but

Randy Newman5:23

They were people I knew and they

Randy Newman5:27

Uh made this great record.

Presenter5:29

Let's talk then about this extraordinary musical dynasty that you were born into. Your father was one of six brothers, and how many of the brothers were involved in in making music in Hollywood?

Randy Newman5:39

Uh there were seven brothers. Three of them were uh film composers, and the third one

Randy Newman5:46

I don't know how much composing he did, but he conducted, and he conducted really well, Amel. Anyway, uh Alfred won nine Academy Awards and and did Hub Room was My Valet and uh almost all the Rogers and Hammerstein Musicals, King and I.

Presenter6:00

And your father was a doctor.

Randy Newman6:01

He was a doctor, yeah. He was the only one who went to school. Yeah, he went to university. He went past the fourth grade. I think uh Alfred, who was the oldest brother,

Randy Newman6:11

wanted him to be a doctor.

Randy Newman6:14

I think he may have wanted to be a musician. I don't know. He played clarinet.

Randy Newman6:18

He had a band at the University of Alabama called Newman and the New Maniacs. I think that's where his heart was really.

Presenter6:25

And he wanted you to do what his brothers had done. He saw that.

Randy Newman6:27

I never said that.

Presenter6:29

Right.

Randy Newman6:29

But I think he did. It looked like a great life to him from the outside. He thought it was just the, you know, the highest art form, film music, I think. And

Randy Newman6:40

He admired his brothers a great deal, and he thought that would be a great thing to be.

Presenter6:44

I get the impression he was a very big character, a strong character.

Randy Newman6:48

It took up a lot of room.

Randy Newman6:50

My mother kinda got squashed, I think.

Randy Newman6:53

Every time I did talk to her about something substantive, she made a lot of sense and helped.

Randy Newman6:58

But my father would jump in and so I mean I didn't get to hear

Randy Newman7:01

finish much of what she was thinking about.

Presenter7:04

Your father wa was away, is that right, in the first few years of your life? You you were down in the south with your mother.

Randy Newman7:07

Seth with your mother

Presenter7:09

What do you remember about New Orleans?

Randy Newman7:11

I remember the heat.

Randy Newman7:13

I remember that it was like the other place. It was very different. The manners, of course, is different, you know, slower.

Presenter7:21

And you have a Southern accent. You definitely don't have an L A accent.

Randy Newman7:24

My mother did. I have a little one, I think. Okay. But my mother uh never lost hers.

Presenter7:29

So what attracted your mum and your dad to each other if they were such if he was this sort of Big

Randy Newman7:34

Well, they were beautiful-looking people. He looked like Robert Donut, the British film star. He'd sign autographs.

Presenter7:41

What did your mother look like?

Randy Newman7:43

She looked like a a southern belle. I mean, and you know, that was hairstyle and things like that, but

Randy Newman7:49

I sometimes think that

Randy Newman7:51

She might have been happier if she'd stayed down.

Randy Newman7:54

uh in New Orleans. She got treated differently there.

Randy Newman7:57

But uh they loved each other in in the way, they really did.

Presenter8:01

And your father was a doctor to I mean, very well known Hollywood people.

Randy Newman8:06

Yeah, he was. My brother became a doctor and he became an oncologist because he wanted his people to really be sick. You know, my dad says, look.

Randy Newman8:15

50% of the people that come to me, they're not sick. But they think they're sick. So you've got to treat them as if they were. And he did.

Randy Newman8:23

I mean, he treated the Rolling Stones when they were in town, as I remember.

Randy Newman8:27

I said, Well what were they like? He said they're the whitest people I've ever seen.

Randy Newman8:33

How's this assessment?

Presenter8:35

And is it true that you woke up one day to find a piano in the corner of your bedroom?

Randy Newman8:38

Yeah. All of a sudden there it was. As if, you know, in case I were Mozart, uh I'd have a piano to prove it on.

Presenter8:45

Tell me then about your next piece of music.

Randy Newman8:47

is the Goodbye from How Green Was My Valley, which was composed by Alfred and is one of his best scores, I think.

Presenter9:22

Goodbyes from How Green Was My Valley, composed and conducted by Alfred Newman, your uncle who won was it, nine Oscars?

Randy Newman9:28

It's mine, yeah.

Presenter9:28

You yourself have won.

Presenter9:30

One Oscar, and been nominated how many times?

Randy Newman9:30

One sky

Presenter9:34

Yeah.

Randy Newman9:34

Uh sixteen.

Presenter9:34

Uh six

Presenter9:35

Thank you.

Presenter9:36

Did it matter then when you eventually won a wee so sick of the whole thing it didn't?

Randy Newman9:40

I didn't think it would matter, because I know that

Randy Newman9:44

Merit is not necessarily what wins those things. But then I got out there, and the orchestra was standing.

Randy Newman9:52

It really

Randy Newman9:53

touched me that they would do that, because they told em not to, they told me later.

Randy Newman9:58

and the audience was standing up and

Randy Newman10:01

And I said, you know, if you're so happy about it, why didn't you give it to me a long time ago? I don't want your sympathy. But I thought, I was kind of choking up and I said, my God, you know, I'll never live it down if I like break down up here at something like this shallow. So I pulled myself together there and took it and went. But it really surprised me, shocked me that I was so moved by this, you know, because it's not meaningful. I mean, it'll be the first sentence of my obituary, no doubt about it, no matter what I do. The second sentence will be about short people. But, you know, it's not the song. It was almost the least.

Randy Newman10:39

worthy thing I've ever had nominated maybe, but

Randy Newman10:43

There you go.

Presenter10:44

I want to find out more about your uncles, because I get the feeling that as well as your father being a big character, your your uncles were too, and you really saw and learned a lot about not just Hollywood, but more importantly about music from them. I mean, you used to go on set, didn't you, with your uncle Al

Randy Newman10:58

Go on stage, yeah.

Presenter11:00

Right. And would this be when he was conducting in front of the screen?

Randy Newman11:02

In front of the screen.

Presenter11:04

Oh, so the movie's showing it.

Randy Newman11:04

Yeah.

Presenter11:06

And a a big, a proper orchestra, a full orchestra he would probably

Randy Newman11:09

Oh, yeah. Some of the same people who played on the Beethoven played on that, maybe all of them.

Presenter11:13

What did that look like to you as a little boy? What impression is it?

Randy Newman11:16

Well, it must have impressed me. The sound of it certainly did. It was a great orchestra to have in my ear at that time. I was very lucky.

Presenter11:23

And your uncle Alfred was, it sounds like, something of a maybe not a tortured soul, but somebody for whom his work was not an enjoyable process.

Randy Newman11:33

I don't know. He seemed as if he weren't happy. He'd work every day from nine to five.

Randy Newman11:40

I never saw him do anything else. Then he'd have a drink and have a few more and uh ultimately I guess go to bed.

Randy Newman11:46

And that was what his life was like.

Presenter11:49

Let's take a break for your next piece of music. What is it?

Randy Newman11:51

The next piece of music is George Jones singing The Door.

Presenter11:56

And why have you chosen?

Randy Newman11:57

I love George Jones.

Randy Newman11:59

I love its voice.

Randy Newman12:01

You know, in high school it's too backward to have girlfriends, really, many of them anyway. Any, to tell the truth.

Randy Newman12:07

But I remember I broke up with somebody later later in life.

Randy Newman12:13

And it hurt.

Randy Newman12:14

And uh I couldn't believe that billions of people had gone through this.

Randy Newman12:19

And I remember driving around listening to George Jones, and all of a sudden I realized why all these crummy lyrics.

Randy Newman12:27

You know, things that would have embarrassed me about how saccharine they were, they really kind of hit home. You realize, well, the whole repertory is based on songs like that. I'd never noticed, I just thought it stunk. But when you're in a state like that, that stuff kind of resonates. More than that, it rips your guts out.

Randy Newman12:49

And he's a great artist, a great singer.

Speaker 412:52

But who would think In my lonely room I'd hear it?

Speaker 413:03

One sound in the world, my heart can't stand.

Speaker 413:12

Hear that sound

Speaker 413:15

And to know it's free.

Presenter13:18

Your

Presenter13:21

George Jones and the Door. You you said that you were kind of backward in school when it came to romance. Why? Were you shy?

Randy Newman13:28

Yeah, I think I've always been shy. Maybe it's my eyes, you know, uh my eyes d they don't fuse, you know, I see double, like I see two of you.

Randy Newman13:37

So I I tended not to look people in the in the eye.

Randy Newman13:40

And that made it difficult to say, hey, would you like to go to the dance with me? or I think.

Presenter13:46

And when did you start composing?

Randy Newman13:48

First thing I got paid for I was like sixteen, I think sixteen, seventeen.

Presenter13:52

Who are you writing for?

Randy Newman13:53

Gene McDaniels, I think.

Randy Newman13:56

Or I was just writing. Every step I've made, sort of major thing, except performing, I was kind of pulled or pushed into it. A friend of mine, Lenny Warner, was really interested in pop music, and I was studying, you know, harmony and counterpoint and classical music. And I like pop music plenty. I listened to it all the time. And he said, why don't you try and write some songs? So I did.

Randy Newman14:20

And uh

Randy Newman14:22

They were sort of okay.

Presenter14:24

Did you take one of your songs to Frank Sinatra?

Randy Newman14:26

It's Lonely at the Top. We did. Me and Lenny went to see him. We took I wrote it for him. I thought it'd be funny if he did a song like Lonely at the Top, which is someone whining about, Oh, even though I'm famous and I have everything, I it's lonely.

Randy Newman14:41

And I thought it'd be kind of hip if he did somethin' like that.

Randy Newman14:44

But he didn't.

Randy Newman14:46

But he he did you meet Facebook. He was like pretending to read music and he was uh playing uh Think It's Gonna Rain and talking about minor key and things like that.

Presenter14:46

Uh

Speaker 314:46

He was like paja

Randy Newman14:55

It was funny to see that kind of insecurity. I mean, maybe it was lonely at the time.

Presenter15:00

And so there came a point when you just got sick of writing I mean the straightforward borderline corny stuff and you

Randy Newman15:06

I was actually writing a song for Frank Snatcher Junior at the time when I wrote uh Simon Smith.

Randy Newman15:13

And I did. I just...

Randy Newman15:16

Had a a ly lyric that had care and there, and it bear got in there, and I just uh

Randy Newman15:23

took off in the direction I ended up.

Presenter15:26

And how did that feel when you finished it, when you looked at the piece? And I mean it's so different from the piece of the piece.

Randy Newman15:29

Made me laugh. I mean, I I uh

Randy Newman15:32

I didn't like it better than anything I'd written, because I liked I was proud of things I'd written before that, but it was different.

Randy Newman15:39

And I I just always thought why not have the latitude a short story writer has? I mean, you know, Alice Monroe or

Randy Newman15:46

William Trevor they don't have to be William Trevor Alice Monroe in the short stories. They never are. And uh why do we have to be that? But it's what I felt comfortable with. Now I learn that it's probably because of shyness.

Presenter16:00

More about that in just a second. Tell me about your next piece of music.

Randy Newman16:03

The next piece of music is uh Fletcher Henderson and his band with uh Stampede. In some of these things by Henderson in around 1927, 1929, there's like five good ideas in the piece. I don't know whether it was the arranger or the tune itself, but uh they were my favorites.

Presenter17:20

That was Fletcher Henderson and his band with the Stampede. You were talking there before we heard that choice about this writing in character, which of course uh people love you for and you've written in the characters of

Randy Newman17:31

Yeah.

Presenter17:32

Well, the people who love you love the fact that you do that, because it's an unusual thing. As we were saying, music is usually, you know, I love you, you love me, we're happy together, you don't love me, you're breaking my heart.

Randy Newman17:36

As we

Randy Newman17:41

That's what people want from him.

Randy Newman17:45

And great writers have functioned doing that, you know.

Presenter17:48

And you have functioned by writing from the point of view of it could be a slave master, it could be a sex addict, it could be a child killer at its worst. I mean, you've really.

Randy Newman17:55

Ask it's worth it.

Presenter17:57

You've you've plumbed the depths of what women are capable of in your song.

Randy Newman17:59

Eventually.

Randy Newman18:00

People sort of don't like it.

Presenter18:02

Does that bother you?

Randy Newman18:03

Yeah.

Randy Newman18:03

No, it doesn't bother me. I I wouldn't have it any differently.

Presenter18:07

Did you ever want to be that sort of star?

Randy Newman18:10

No. I'd often think something that I wrote was a hit and I'd played for someone and

Randy Newman18:15

They'd look good. That was crazy, you know. I mean, that's a hit.

Randy Newman18:20

But I always wanted to sell records. I always think, well, this isn't hard to understand. You know, it's not Joyce.

Presenter18:27

What about writing in the third person then? You alluded to the fact that maybe now you're coming round to the idea that it has partly been a a shield from letting people see.

Randy Newman18:35

Maybe it is. I'm not ashamed of saying anything about myself. I'd answer anything you ask.

Randy Newman18:43

Uh so I don't think I'm reticent about that. And I've lately I've been doing more stuff that's closer to being biographical than I've done,'cause that's where I'm finding the stuff. I'd take a song wherever I found it. Uh I wouldn't care whether it hurt me or those close to me or anyone. It's life and death to me.

Presenter19:03

You did say that in a song where you wrote being married to your second wife, you wrote something of a bittersweet.

Randy Newman19:10

Yeah, that's what that song's about. To your first one. No one's ever noticed that. It's about, it says, I'd sell my soul and your soul for a song. That's what I'm mean about. I set up.

Presenter19:11

Love song to your to your first one.

Randy Newman19:22

I would do this, is what it's saying. And it says, and I wanted you to know. You're saying all this stuff about how you miss someone.

Randy Newman19:30

That you should have been nice to 25 years ago. So writing a love song for your first wife while married to the second one.

Presenter19:36

How did that go down?

Randy Newman19:37

My wife I'm married to now asked me not to play it when she was at a show.

Randy Newman19:42

But I can't remember whether I did or not.

Randy Newman19:45

Well it's really a good song I might have, but I I didn't need it.

Presenter19:49

Tell me about your next piece of music then.

Randy Newman19:50

The next piece of music is uh Paris sacrificial dance from uh The Rite of Spring by Stravinsky.

Presenter19:57

And what is it about this?

Randy Newman19:59

While Stravinsky is a big deal, important deal, those three pieces he wrote in the early part of the last century Ryder Spring, Petrushka and Firebird

Randy Newman20:11

They're tremendous pieces, the writer spring particularly.

Randy Newman20:14

He was a great composer. I mean, it's one of those things, you know. I mean, you leave Shastakovich off, you put him on, or Bartok's not on my list anymore. I didn't know what the hell to do. This is bad. I it's nice talking to you. But I mean, this was difficult.

Presenter20:30

We've put you through hell. What kinda?

Randy Newman20:32

Let's see what's going on.

Presenter21:24

Part of the sacrificial dance from Stravinsky's Rite of Spring, played by the Boston Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Benjamin Zander. You said there will be two top lines when you pop off. They will be about the fact that you won an Oscar and that you wrote short people. I can't avoid but ask you about short people. Of course it was this um a satire on the absurdities of prejudice. You you were writing and singing about

Randy Newman21:36

And that he wrote

Randy Newman21:45

I mean, that's what I ended up saying. But it was about someone who was crazy. It was nothing. I'd say, uh,

Presenter21:45

Um

Randy Newman21:51

It reached people whom I normally don't reach, you know, on top 40 radio in the U.S. So discharge he would call me with one of those voices. He'd talk like this regularly. Andy Newman, this song, Short People, has caused a lot of controversy. It's about prejudice, isn't it? And I'd say, yeah, it's about prejudice. Ah, thank you. So you don't really hate short people, do you? And I'd say, no, but I'm getting it. I didn't say that.

Randy Newman22:20

But it was just about a guy who was. There's no cabal against short people. I mean, it.

Randy Newman22:26

He was just nuts, that's all.

Presenter22:28

So it was written from the point of view of somebody who was just irrational.

Randy Newman22:31

Yeah.

Presenter22:31

And you'cause you thought that was funny.

Randy Newman22:33

Yeah.

Randy Newman22:34

I do. Little cars that go beep, beep, beep, little voices going beep, beep, beep. I thought it was funny.

Randy Newman22:39

And I didn't know people were so sensitive.

Presenter22:42

But is it true your concerts were picketed?

Randy Newman22:42

But is it

Randy Newman22:44

Yeah. By little people.

Randy Newman22:47

And I got a death threat, too, in Memphis.

Randy Newman22:51

And my manager said, you know, I used to be in the road with the carpenters, that this would happen to them all the time. And I said, Really? And he said, Yeah, yeah, you know, about once every three concerts they get a death threat. So I said, Okay. So I went out there and did it.

Presenter22:58

Yeah.

Randy Newman23:04

When I was done I said to him, I said, That was you know, it was pretty good that I did that. It was kind of brave actually, you know,'cause I was thinking about getting shot. And he said, Yeah, you know, you had your head behind the mic half of the show and and then I I said, Oh, do the carpenters really get that many death threats? He said, No, I just tell them that to you, so you go on.

Presenter23:23

But you're still here. And this and the satire now, a lot of the satire, I mean some of it you've written quite a while back seems more episodite now than than ever it did. I'm thinking particularly about songs like Political Science and a few words in defence of my country. I mean America is not around the globe universally loved these days. How long ago was it you were writing these songs? And and give people a sample of what you were saying in these songs.

Randy Newman23:39

Google

Randy Newman23:44

Political Science is a song again about going further than

Randy Newman23:49

Anyone would go. Now, I don't know what the name of that is, whether it's satire or irony. I think it's satire, maybe.

Randy Newman23:55

But it's, you know, no one likes us. I don't know why. We may not be perfect, but heaven knows we try. But all around, even our old friends put us down. Let's drop the big one and see what happens. Now, again.

Randy Newman24:05

There's nobody that nuts. But there is a jingoism in America, and always has been. Nationalism gone a little bit.

Randy Newman24:14

Too far.

Randy Newman24:15

So I did write that and now

Randy Newman24:18

They don't laugh in Europe at that song.

Presenter24:21

Tell me about your next piece of music, then.

Randy Newman24:23

It's the beginning of Shastikov's 15th Symphony. Some of the things I like.

Randy Newman24:29

like this piece are when composers are sort of beyond

Randy Newman24:33

Caring about public or anything else. And this sounds like Shastakovich was writing for himself.

Presenter25:37

The beginning of Shostakovich's Symphony No. fifteen, played by the London Philharmonic, conducted by Bernard Heitink. So, Randy Newman, you put off, you resisted going into the family business well, I call it the family business, composing uh scores for the movies for quite a long time. What was the first one that you worked on?

Randy Newman25:55

The first picture I did was a picture called Cold Turkey.

Randy Newman25:59

And it was about a town that was quitting smoking. And I I did. I turned down a lot of pictures, but I don't I'm not sure I was wrong in the ones I turned down. I I've used to make my choices on what I was going to do.

Randy Newman26:10

on how important music would be to the picture.

Randy Newman26:13

If voting didn't count for anything, I didn't do it.

Presenter26:16

I I'm thinking, of course, when you say that about Toy Story one and two, you you lent an extraordinary amount of uh well pathos and depth to a film that was a a beautifully animated film, but the music was a significant part of the story that was delivered.

Randy Newman26:28

But

Randy Newman26:31

Of the story that was delivered. It turned out, irrespective of how much the music meant to it, I hope it meant a lot, those are good pictures.

Presenter26:40

And the albums that we talked about earlier, where you are singing and songwriting, have been few and far between. Do you find it easier, maybe, to write when you've got a deadline and when you've got a script and when you've got people calling you every day to say, where is it? Where's the score?

Randy Newman26:44

And then f

Randy Newman26:53

Where's the score? Well, you have no choice about discipline is imposed from without. Yeah. And I have to go in there, I have to work.

Presenter26:57

Yeah.

Presenter27:00

But is is the process enjoyable for you, or is it is it a a tortured process?

Randy Newman27:05

When I'm going good, it's all right. When I don't know what to do.

Randy Newman27:09

tortured for a moment. If I only had

Randy Newman27:12

The ability.

Randy Newman27:14

To look ahead at consequences. I mean, I'd realize that things are going to turn out okay. I mean, I've done it so many times that I know I'm going to get an idea that will get me out of this scene. And I know that I'm going to write another song because I've written 100 before. And if I take this drug, I'm going to feel awful tomorrow. Worse, the low will be worse than the highest. But I've never been able to look ahead like that.

Presenter27:36

And what about your uncle? You said that he would compose from nine till five every day, then he'd go and have a drink, and then he'd compose the next day. I mean, do you need to do that?

Randy Newman27:44

He'd turn the chair around and have a drink at five o'clock camp. Used to call post time. There were a lot of that in my family.

Presenter27:46

Compile

Presenter27:54

And do you need to do that?

Randy Newman27:58

I don't do it. I never liked alcohol that much. Uh there's like minor substance abuse. There's some genetic substance abuse rattling around in the family, it would seem.

Presenter28:08

'Cause I'm thinking of LA famously as a town which is, you know, you're either A A and N A and in bed at nine o'clock at night, or you're out in the Viper rooms forgetting what you did last night. It's it is it is a city of extremes, is it not?

Randy Newman28:14

Never watched it.

Randy Newman28:22

Uh yeah, there is those two extremes.

Randy Newman28:25

Cocaine really cut a hole in pop music in Los Angeles.

Randy Newman28:31

Missing years in people's lives.

Presenter28:33

But not in yours?

Randy Newman28:34

No, I don't really like cooking that much.

Randy Newman28:37

Oh, I never liked alcohol particularly.

Randy Newman28:39

I never really loved anything but pain medication.

Randy Newman28:43

That includes my family.

Presenter28:46

And the doctor's son too, yes. There there is something appropriate in that.

Randy Newman28:50

I had a doctor tell me once.

Randy Newman28:52

He said maybe that's a connection your father,'cause he'd give me stuff.

Randy Newman28:55

You know, like amphetamines, everyone else has taken them. You know, as a composer, he didn't want me to get behind the other composers, you know, like so it sounds awful now.

Randy Newman29:06

But it was different time, you know, it was like he lived in the age where they discovered Panicillin.

Randy Newman29:11

in those miracle drugs and he just loved that kind of m magic that medicine could do.

Randy Newman29:19

And uh I think he knew that it was psychological with uh if you he took amphetamines to right.

Randy Newman29:25

as a lot of the guys did.

Randy Newman29:27

You get to thinking, if you don't have me, you can't write. And of course it's not true. Kids, if there are any of you still left.

Randy Newman29:35

It's not true, no.

Presenter29:37

Tell me about your next piece of music then.

Randy Newman29:39

I love Mahler and the Adagio the Ninth is representative of him and it's a great piece.

Presenter30:40

Part of the adagio from Mahler's Ninth Symphony played by the Berlin Philharmonic conducted by Herbert von Carrion.

Presenter30:46

Um so right now you have a new album. Are you working on new music for a movie or is it just one thing at a time for you?

Randy Newman30:55

Well, I I like to do one thing at a time.

Randy Newman30:58

I can do more. I'm doing songs for a Disney movie called The Frog Princess.

Presenter31:04

How do you find dealing with with big Hollywood? I mean, with a corporation like Disney? Is that I think because you are something of a a part-time rebel. I'm wondering how you get on with big corporate America.

Randy Newman31:15

Well, I get along. I don't have I don't have uh

Presenter31:16

I get a

Randy Newman31:19

Like a knee-jerk reaction to big corp, you know, hate them automatically. You know, they're human beings, they're people more or less.

Randy Newman31:26

But

Randy Newman31:28

The process is different. With Disney, I like getting assignments. It's the easiest thing that I do is write songs on which I've given the parameters and an assignment. And I'm proud of the songs I've done.

Randy Newman31:40

You try and find the guys to work for I do.

Randy Newman31:43

Because I'm in the luxury of doing so since I also do something else.

Randy Newman31:46

guys you can stand to be in the same room with and who are on the same wavelength uh musically as as you are.

Presenter31:53

Can you stand to be in the same room with yourself? Because of course I'm going to send you away to this desert island. Will will you will you be comfortable with your own company?

Randy Newman32:02

Yeah, I think I'll get there. I'll figure it out.'Cause I have to.

Presenter32:07

How are you at home? I mean, do you like to fill your if if you're not having to sit down at the blank score and compose? Do you sort of fill your life, or are you one of these people who can sit and stare out the window?

Randy Newman32:16

Set the steer up.

Randy Newman32:18

I mean, I've had children since I was twenty three.

Presenter32:20

You have five children, three from your first marriage, two from your second.

Randy Newman32:21

Yeah.

Randy Newman32:24

So I spent a lot of time.

Randy Newman32:26

With them and thinking about them and and talking about them and stuff.

Randy Newman32:31

That's been what my life has been about. I mean my brother just retired.

Randy Newman32:35

From medicine he's younger than I.

Randy Newman32:38

And he has hobbies. He and his wife are pals. Now, I don't know.

Randy Newman32:42

whether my wife's my pal or not.

Randy Newman32:45

And I don't have any hobbies. I don't know what I'd do.

Presenter32:48

And you're sixty five this year, so

Randy Newman32:49

Yeah, this year.

Presenter32:50

Can you imagine stopping writing ever?

Randy Newman32:54

I think I can.

Randy Newman32:56

But it's how I judge myself. Harshly, I imagine. Not harshly. No, I think this last record I made is the best record I made. And the one before that I thought was the s is second best.

Presenter32:58

Harshly, I imagine.

Randy Newman33:07

In fact, I'm sure of it. I don't care what anyone says in something like that. If I didn't think so, if I thought I was getting appreciably worse than really sliding.

Randy Newman33:16

I wouldn't do it anymore.

Randy Newman33:18

I mean, I wish I'd done more. What can I say?

Randy Newman33:21

You know, I've done three albums in 20 years. I mean, that's pathetic.

Randy Newman33:25

You know? It really is.

Randy Newman33:27

And I'll try and do better. What can I say?

Presenter33:30

This from a man who says he's not harsh on himself. Tell me about your final piece of music then.

Randy Newman33:34

Final piece of music is Ray Charles.

Randy Newman33:37

Singing Kamrana Kamshad

Randy Newman33:39

You know, this may have been my favorite record. I mean, um I I I don't know how many records I've bought that non-classical records, but it's not fifty.

Randy Newman33:49

And uh

Randy Newman33:51

This record I loved, and I loved him, loved him.

Speaker 433:57

What don't ever bet me?

Speaker 434:02

Cause I'm gonna be true Well, if you let me

Speaker 434:12

You gonna love me?

Speaker 434:16

Like no one's love me

Speaker 434:19

Come rain or come shine

Presenter34:23

Ray Charles singing Come Rain or Come Shine. So I am going to give you, Randy Newman, the Bible and the Complete Works of Shakespeare, and you are allowed to take another book. What's your book going to be?

Randy Newman34:33

I think I take Dante's The Divine Comedy in Italian with an English translation, and I try and translate it.

Randy Newman34:42

I understand some Italian, and I guess I'd have enough time to pick up a little more.

Presenter34:46

And what would your luxury be something to make life a little more bearable?

Randy Newman34:50

The Italian dishonor? No.

Presenter34:51

No, it's your choice.

Randy Newman34:52

I guess I'd take a piano and and then I'd practice and see how good I could get at it.

Presenter34:58

We'll give you the piano. And um even worse than asking you to pick eight, I'm now gonna ask you to pick one. If the waves were to wash to the shore and threaten to to take all your discs away, which one would you want to save?

Randy Newman35:08

I think I'd take the late Beethoven Quartets.

Randy Newman35:11

It's a lot of music and I could really look at it hard.

Randy Newman35:14

It's funny how, you know, on my desert island I'm trying to work myself, you know, I think I'm going to have to think of a way to fill that time.

Randy Newman35:22

But I also you can't go wrong with it, it's great music.

Presenter35:25

Okay, you may have that. Randy Newman, thank you very much for letting us use your desert island.

Randy Newman35:29

It's been great talking to you, but it was terrible getting ready for this thing.

Presenter35:32

It's been a pleasure. Thank you very much.

Randy Newman35:33

Okay, me too.

Presenter35:41

You've been listening to a podcast from the Desert Island Discs Archive. For more podcasts, please visit bbc.co.uk slash radio four.