WTF with Marc Maron Podcast - Episode 831 - Randy Newman

Episode Date: July 23, 2017

Marc believes - and many agree with him - that Randy Newman is an American genius. One person who's not so sure is Randy himself who, after half a century as a recording artist, 13 solo albums, 23 soundtracks, six Grammys, two Oscars and induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, tells Marc he still doesn't think he's done enough. They talk about Randy's early albums, his struggles with songwriting, his film scores, his latest album Dark Matter and his legacy in American music. Sign up here for WTF+ to get the full show archives and weekly bonus material! https://plus.acast.com/s/wtf-with-marc-maron-podcast. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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per month. Visit Zensurance today to get a free quote. Zensurance, mind your business. All right, let's do this. How are you, what the fuckers? What the fuck buddies? What the fuckineers? What the fuckaroos uh what the fuckadelics what's happening i'm mark maron this is my podcast wtf thank you for uh for tuning in for making the choice for hanging out with me and my mind and my guests and my mouth and my weird lisp and the moving lozenge in my mouth on occasion. I got to get off him again. I think my body is turned on him. So it's not having the same effect anymore.

Randy Newman is on the show today and I can't tell you what a honor it was for me to have him in here because I love him. I love his work. I've always liked him as a person. When I was a kid, I obviously, I don't love him. I love his work. I've always liked him as a person. When I was a kid, obviously I don't know him. I didn't have never met him before, but he was one of the first guys that really blew my mind when I was turned on to his music by a kid I used to ride a bus with.

And I think the first records I had were Good Old Boys and Sail Away. And I must have been in junior high. And I was just sort of like man this stuff is beautiful it's poignant it's cutting it's funny it's i just i loved him and i always have loved him and he used to appear on letterman he was hilarious and i just tell you for years i've been trying to get him on this show and you're gonna hear it it today. And I think I managed the fanboy-ness. This was not an all-out fanboy interview. I was engaged and interested and it wasn't just me being beside myself.

Yeah, man, I'm all right. I'm out there. I'm doing the comedy. I'm doing the new stuff. It's so funny. There's a comedy boom. doing the new stuff it's so funny there's a comedy boom people are like what's happening why is there a comedy boom because when people are terrified of the end of the world on a daily basis they tend to uh seek some uh relief and distraction and wow hey why is the economy so good still why is the stock market so good because when americans are terrified we turn to

stuff oh my god this is horrendous i need some new shoes i need a car i need i imagine the the i someone should check the traffic on the free porn sites it's got to be out of control some people turn to god other people turn to stuff shiny stuff moving stuff things that uh and make me feel good things that make me look at myself and go yay things that go fast anything to get me away from this very in my face existential panic that is founded in reality not just the the uh the ingrained uh consciousness of one's mortality but to have it in your face every day and in the hands of somebody else that you have no fucking control over yeah yeah that that'll lead you right to your dick right to the store right to the ice cream pint right to the comedy club right to amazon right whatever that's the way that's the way

the american economy works holy shit i can't deal hey will that thing make me feel better how much is it oh yeah you know what also this is exciting this is getting more exciting because the book you know as as i've told you we've got a book coming out in october called waiting for the punch words to live by from the wtf podcast and i i i kind of want to give you a good idea of uh of what the book is about but i also want to say that there's already feedback coming in from the the few copies that are out in the world that we gave away at BookCon and some people have gotten hold of them.

It's really compelling and powerful and I'm very proud of it. Because one of my favorite books is Please Kill Me, The Uncensored Oral History of Punk by Legs McNeil and Jillian McCain. And we wanted to make something as good as that book. So Waiting for the Punch is actually a deep dive

into some of the most common themes that come up over and over on this show. Relationships, failure, success, addiction, mental health, parenting. Each chapter is a different theme and we have conversations with more than 150 people in the book who have all been on this show, all chiming in together

about these shared experiences and ideas and it was it was a hell of a thing to to wrangle brendan mcdonald is the genius of the editing the the compiling guy's got a memory as a steel trap is that the way that is that that saying but anyways look i want to give you an example and i think this will work in the chapter on relationships you've got conan O'Brien, Mel Brooks, Carl Reiner, and Rob Reiner all talking about friendship. These were four separate interviews done over several years,

but the way it's arranged in the book, it's all part of one big conversation. All right, so take a listen to this. When I came out to Los Angeles, I met all these people. In 85, I came out here, and over time, I met all these people, and 85 I came out here but I and over time I met all these people and it's the same cast of characters yeah I mean everyone just keeps popping up and it is funny that you're assigned a set of characters when you're born and they keep showing up in your

life and that's just how it works yeah Yeah. Oh, it's you again. I really believe that there is a force in the universe that has a sense of humor. These things are just too weird. Yeah, it's beyond coincidence. Yeah. And sometimes Carl Reiner. Yeah. I get Carl to come up.

You spend a lot of time with him still, right? Oh, yeah. Almost every other night. Yeah. Three nights a week, I'll be at Carl's house. Yeah. Carl loves, more than anything at Carl's house. Yeah. Carl loves, more than anything,

what he calls reallys, that we do. And Carl is so proud that we do them only for ourselves. We don't do them for an audience. We don't do them

for another person. You just try to one-up each other? Yeah. Well, we try to really amaze each other with where we're going

with our minds. Yeah, yeah. And we're still pretty good at it. So you guys just sit and hang out for an hour or two? Well, about three, four hours. Yeah? Five hours. And sometimes while we're watching something that's not terribly,

he'll fall asleep, and I won't wake him because he drives home, and I'm saying he probably better he sleeps here than falls behind the wheel. What is that thing he told me about movies, that you like watching movies with certain phrases in them? Oh, yeah, that's true. And it's really, it started with the Bourne series. Yeah. And the phrases are, secure the perimeter, lock all doors.

And if one character in the movie says, get some rest. If those words are in the movie, that movie's a good movie. And as you get older, you don't see people as much anymore. No, that's true. And why do you think that is? Time. I think it has to do, I really believe, that whole thing they say where you're born alone, you die alone, that bit.

Yeah. Well, I think what happens as you get older, you start thinking about, you know, that. Yeah. And also that you don't want to spend any time with anybody that's going to annoy you or make it uncomfortable. And as you get older, you realize that there are more and more people that annoy you. So you limit your your world keeps narrowing and getting narrower. This happens at a subconscious level or a conscious way. I think it's unconscious.

I don't think it's I don't think you're consciously saying i think i'm gonna narrow my world now no you you think you know i don't really like that person that much so why should i say you know it's like it's like when you're young you'd never leave a movie theater until the movie's over right now you go i don't really like why do i have to watch the last hour of this piece of crap you know because i have such a limited time on the planet. And now with phones and computers, it's like all the time is eaten up. Unnecessarily eaten up. Yes.

And you fake, you trick yourself into believing that you're actually either working or communicating with people. Right. You know, I'm texting, I'm emailing, I'm doing. You're not talking to anybody. Exactly. You're talking to a computer right and that and actually talking to people is like it's like we're doing now it becomes exhausting it is exhausting if you could text somebody it's like oh boy i'm gonna talk to that guy i'm so happy

to not have to talk to him yeah so here's the thing yeah you look at this show like friends right friends the show friends it's so funny and and and you've got all these people yeah they're they're in their i guess their 20s or something right and they're hanging out with each other and i guess that's what you do you go in packs but when you get into your 30s your 40s you're right you don't do that anymore you got kids you got kids you hang out with them and then when you get older you don't have that hey let's go and hang out at the coffee shop they don't do it maybe you get one guy yeah one guy i mean i talked to your father i was at the house you grew up in i think yeah and he says he hangs out with mel every night mel mel and my dad every single night really every night yeah

virtually every night that's really something listen it's wonderful that they have each other they met each other when they were in their 20s you know yeah show shows and to have that kind of bond and that bond to stick and they make each other laugh yeah enjoy each other's company they both lost their spouses recently so they have that and they'd say that you know they watch any movie that has secure the perimeter in it they they watch it that was conan o'Brien, Mel Brooks, Carl Reiner, and Rob Reiner, as you'll read in Chapter 4 of Waiting for the Punch. You can preorder your copy now, and starting today, we've got a little bonus for anyone who preorders the book.

When you send in your proof of purchase, we'll send you a special Waiting for the Punch book plate signed by me that you can stick right on the inside cover just go to wtfpod.com and click on book at the top of the page or click on the cover of the book anywhere on the site then pre-order the book to get your signed book plate dig it you good all right so also i forgot to mention that as many of you know the great martin landau died last week and i had one of the most amazing conversations with him about a lot of things but about acting a lot and it was very helpful to me and uh i'm going i'm planning on re-listening

to it myself uh if we get picked up for another season of GLOW. We haven't heard yet, but I just want to make sure that I'm engaging as well as I could be. But we can all listen to that episode because we'll keep that episode in the free feed. It's episode 779, and it's a great conversation about acting, about film, about life. And he's going to be missed. He lived a good long life so speaking about good long lives what i've been doing as opposed to going to vancouver as i've been locking into my life doing work around the house i cleaned the garage i'm it's clean vacuumed it dusted got rid of shit, organized a lot of papers, went through stuff, and I dug up an old, it's what you call an eighth step list in the recovery jargon in the program, 12-step program.

And it's one of these things where you make a list of all the people you've harmed and you're willing to make an amends. Now, many of you have heard me make amends before, you know, on this show. But this is one of the first lists I ever made when I got sober almost 18 years ago. It'll be 18 years, August 9th. And it's just very weird to see this list. I don't know where it was. It was around. It was here in a pile of papers. And I almost threw it out. I thought I threw it out. And I didn't get to a lot of them, man. And some of them I don't know if I need to make. And so I

just was going through it. And I just, let's just go through it real quick. Ex-wives. Yeah, those I did. I did those pretty effectively. My brother, my mom, my dad. Yup. My ex-in-laws. That's outstanding. I should do that one.

Amy. Yeah, we're good. Devin, good. Sarah, we're good. Gail, good. Alan. I'm not clear what I have to do there. Janet, I think we're okay.

Kathy, we're okay. Bob, I don't know you anything.. Janet, I think we're okay. Kathy, we're okay. Bob, I don't know you anything. Rolf, I think we're all right. Gary, I don't even know if you're alive. Oh, here's a big chunk, a big bunch of teachers. Mr. Ross, Mrs. Block, Mr. Sanderson, Mrs. Randall, Mrs. Weber, Mrs. Croco, Mr. Clout. Yeah, I was difficult. I apologize apologize and i'm sorry for making you cry

mrs weber brill i'm okay with adam sandler pending cliff dude i know what this is about this is about some party that happened in a hotel room there's a bunch of us i think i made out with your sister for 10 minutes and i don't know if i owe you an apology because i was sort of a two-way street but it was probably inappropriate but whatever whatever. Long time ago. Hope everything's good with you. Colin. Yeah, I'd like to make that happen. Jon Stewart. I don't know that that's that one I'm just going to have to live with. Amy. Yeah, in college. It was a nice dinner you made, but I just had to go see that band. And I'm sorry I left early. It was rude. It was rude. and I'm sorry I left early.

It was rude. It was rude. John. Yeah, I'm sorry I broke all the stuff in my kitchen around you in a menacing way, but you were fucking my girlfriend. Okay. Here's one. This is a great one on the list.

It just says audiences. I should put some dates there. Audiences throughout the 80s and early 90s. I'm sorry. I am sorry'm sorry i am sorry you're right you're right i it was it was hard for all of us audiences oh there was one other guy in the amends list i didn't mention where how come i just went by that brian junior high uh yeah i'm sorry i got us both suspended i i should have done my homework and studied as opposed to cheat off of your paper i have shame around that that's shame that was a

lesson and it was an incredible moral compromise on my part and uh i'll never forget it and i i'm sorry i hope everything worked out for you. I personally enjoyed the few days off. But that was bullshit. And yeah, I feel bad. Okay. Randy Newman, one of my heroes. And I've been trying to get him in here for a long time. And I was just so excited to talk to him.

And he came. He's got a new record out called Dark Matter, which is great. It's like a real Randy Newman record from back in the day. It's going to be out on August 4th. And also, I guess he recently did some sort of Trump penis song. This was recorded a little while ago a couple weeks maybe and so that wasn't on the uh radar yet but we did talk about how he would handle the topic of trump in one of his songs because he is a great satirist and a very bright

guy sharp i love talking to him i and then this is the first time i've ever done this like he's got a representative but because of the conversation we had i i wrote to her after it and i said hey you know i i don't know how busy he is or if he gets sad or if he likes to hang out but uh i'm always i'm available i'm around if randy wants to have lunch or something i've never done that before and she she said she'd tell him but i mean what does that mean i felt kind of stupid for doing it i just like talking to him so much i was like i'd like to like make this a regular thing yeah maybe monthly bi-weekly something just sit down with randy over some food and just talk for an hour maybe that dream will

come true i don't know. But I do know that we did sit here and talk in the garage a while back, and I was thrilled. So this is me and the brilliant Randy. You can get anything you need with Uber Eats. Well, almost, almost anything. So no, you can't get snowballs on Uber Eats. But meatballs and mozzarella balls, yes, we can deliver that. Uber Eats. Get almost, almost anything.

Order now. Product availability may vary by region. See app for details. Calgary is a city built by innovators. Innovation is in the city's DNA. And it's with this pedigree that bright minds and future thinking problem solvers are tackling some of the world's greatest challenges from right here in Calgary. From cleaner energy, safe and secure food, efficient movement of goods and people and better health solutions, Calgary's visionaries are turning heads around the globe

across all sectors each and every day. Calgary's on the right path forward. Take a closer look how at calgaryeconomicvelopment.com. Newman. I'll tell you something. I've been holding on to a story for years, and I don't know if it's true. And it's about me, and it's about you, and I'm going to ask you about it. Years ago, you're friends with Lorne Michaels. Yes. Yes.

And years ago, I was on Conan O'Brien. And Lorne Michaels had a guy who worked for him named Jim Biederman. Do you remember Jim Biederman? Very vaguely. Yeah. Well, I don't know. I guess Lorne, I had come up in conversation between you and Lorne because I had appeared on Conan O'Brien doing comedy. And I guess Lorne was not quite sold on me. And Jim Biederman relayed to me that you told

lauren i was a verbessin a what a a sour person a sour person yeah yeah it sounds like a word i might have used talking to lauren yeah so i go good so there might be credible i i'm not asking you to remember but i i just want i don't i don't remember but yeah that's possible well good that makes i don't know whether i don't know whether that's praise or or criticism all i know is far far far business yeah yeah is that a word you got from your grandmother yeah there's only a few but that's one of them they're all pejoratives in some sense you know pejorative yiddish yeah well that's the language is pejoratives in some sense. Pejorative Yiddish? Yeah. Well, the language is pejorative in a way.

My father used to call me things, and only we got that Leo Rosten book. Yeah, yeah, yeah. The Joys of Yiddish. You look him up, and he was calling me a little shithead. Because they were trying to fool you at first. Yeah. It was their way of communicating. No, it was a way of affection, possibly. Yeah. But you didn't grow up that Jewish, right? Not at all. Yeah. It was their way of communicating. No, it was a way of affection, possibly. Yeah.

But you didn't grow up that Jewish, right? Not at all. No? But they were there. It was there. The Jews were there. Not a great, yeah, not like a great amount. Yeah.

I listened to the new record, the whole new record, and I enjoyed it very much. Thank you. And I'd like to think that because I've been listening to a lot of your records uh recently because i knew i was going to talk to you i had to refresh yeah a lot of them and it seems to me that a couple of the ones on here are very uh reminiscent to a style that you've kind of carried through from the 70s yeah like uh like i guess one question i wanted to ask do you prefer the past or the present? Present. Okay. I never believe that things were better, even the stuff about music, that the 70s were better and Saturday Night Live was funnier and all that stuff. I don't know about that thing.

I think it's hard to judge. I mean, you got to watch out for the old crock factor. Which is what? which is things were better when i was a kid so you mean just nostalgia yeah yeah yeah but it's not always a valid way of judging things no i know i'm up against it myself i'm 53 and i wonder about that when i find myself saying stuff like that but then i start to think other other ways i start to think like well if rock and roll as we know it started in 1955 when you're closer to the source and there were fewer people doing it and everyone kind of knew each other. Maybe at least it was a little warmer, a little more connected.

I like it better, you know. Now? Early stuff, no. Oh, yeah, right. But I don't necessarily completely trust my affection for it. don't necessarily completely trust my affection for it the fact that the music has lived since the 70s yeah and that there are so many people on the road in the 70s yeah from the 70s maybe it's an indication that that it was solid it was good yeah and also that it represents something to a certain bunch of people yeah who need something now and it's a big bulge in the

population too baby boomers yeah yeah and they're they're seeing the light now yeah so so maybe they need to tap into what they were maybe a little bit yeah and also on this album there's a a kind of unique song about the the kennedy brothers yeah and what i'll say it's unique there's nothing like it that maybe some of the compulsion to to move on cuba was about a lady yeah let's hear your cruise now what is did you pick that did you glean that from a story no i made it all up entirely what i am interested in yeah is the relationship of brothers that's why i call it brothers yeah the older brother kind of teasing the younger one for his excitement.

Bobby Kennedy is going, you know, we're going to go and we'll march to Havana. People will march and the people, the peasants will join them. Yeah. And John says, oh, the peasants will join them. You know, I like that. Yeah, yeah. Like that they have this dynamic. Yeah.

that yeah yeah like that they have this dynamic yeah the you know the older brother they sing and bobby jack says uh sing harmony bobby yeah yeah bobby says uh i always sing harmony jack and jack says i know you do i like that so you just like the it's it's sort of interesting to me that that you have these like they're almost poetic vignettes that kind of just float you know to the music and they they don't a lot of them don't have specific definition but that makes them even broader and bigger and more mysterious and powerful oh thank you i hope so this one is different in that other voices intruded on things. You know, the first song is a song about science versus religion, more or less. Yeah.

And there are two or three voices in it, which I've never done before. I do write songs that are in character where I'm not the narrator of the song. A lot of songs. A lot of them. Yeah. It's mostly my style, whether it was shyness

or whatever it is that did it. of the song a lot of songs a lot of them yeah it's mostly my style whether it was shyness or whatever it is that did it i was more interested in sort of aberrant personality well let me ask you this though was your very first song that you wrote and performed you know on record was that you i'm telling you that gridiron more oh that gridiron golden boy? No. It was one of those things. The bitter guy who's like, oh, the jock gets the chick. I wrote songs like a summer song. It would be 16, 17. I don't know whether I got the idea.

My father wrote, he was a doctor, but he wrote song lyrics. Yeah. And so he'd write a Christmas song when it was Christmas time. Yeah. It was like Holiday Inn, the Bing Crosby movie yeah yeah and so I wrote a summer song was like that actually the first one I wrote they tell me it's summer Fleetwoods did it yeah but so that would just give me an idea

so I wrote a why I wrote a football song I don't know yeah well to me it was more of a like a kind of a... An embarrassment. Yeah, the plight of the nerdy, sensitive guy. Yeah. I don't know whether I was rooting for him or against him, though. Well, I think that comes through, too, that you ride this weird balance between sympathetic and critical that offers a little bit of gray area. It does. So what were you saying

about the first song on this album oh the multi voices you had like a creationist a scientist and then a scientist and a narrator and at the end there's someone who sort of intrudes on the thing and says how that I talks about the actual

about me a little bit yeah oh yeah yeah yeah so but that's something that's fascinated you for a long time, hypocrisy and power, stupidity. Both ends. Yes, it has. And insensitivity in general. People who don't know themselves very well and people who are insensitive to the effect their words or

actions may have on others yeah we're all living in that we are yeah yeah i mean because i what i listened to a few words in defense of our country that was what 2008 and i'm wondering if you're shifting in your point of view it's much more appropriate today now and who would have ever believed there'd be a worse administration than the Bush administration? Oh, yeah. Because it didn't seem competent to me. But this one is. Baffling.

Dwarfs it. Yeah. And never a dull moment in the wrong way. Well, you know, there's that famous saying, it's a curse to live in interesting times. Yeah. And it is. You know, it's words, you know, he'll listen to what the mayor says and just not understand that the mayor was saying, you know, be calm. Right. Everything's under control.

Right. He says, telling the people to be calm. Don't be alarmed. Yeah, he said we should be alarmed. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know. Yeah, what are you going to do? Well, you've lived through many interesting times, right?

Not like this one. No, of course. I don't think any of us have. No. But there's certainly, like, if you don't mind going back through it, but even on Good Old Boys, which I think was the first album I had of yours, that, you know, there was still this tension in the country. There was racism.

There was misguided people. There was, you know, all this stuff was still there and there and still you know kind of hot then in the 70s and you were able to address that with some empathy yeah yeah i mean could you address this with because there's things I could never say to you. And then doing all the requisite oriental almost praising of him that you have to do right i know how wonderful and brilliant and blim blim you are and and and how everyone loves you all the people that i just was wondering and she'll say it she would she could say it in some kind of way where do you know what real is do you really know what's what know what's going on here. You could do it like that, like someone like

Lorde, you know, or could do a song, very effective one like that, I think. Are you going to write it for Lorde? I don't know. Well, now anyone can write it. But I didn't. I restrained myself. I didn't want to have an idea.

I like her. I'm sort of fascinated with her. To have written that song about class, shocking. It's great. And no one did it. It's like there's subjects that people just have, giant ones that they haven't covered, I don't think. Janis Ian wrote that song, 17, about not being worried about how you look.

Right. Which is endemic, you know, when you're a teenager. Yeah. But I can't think of any songs about it but that one. I mean, no, there's more, but not much. You know, the medium is mostly love songs. Yeah. It has been always. And there's a good reason for it. That's what people like.

You mean pop songs? Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Well, any kind, yeah. Well, I mean, folk songs. Classical songs, too. Folk songs are slightly different. Right, because they have the populist drive.

Yeah. Back in the day anyways, right? They did. Yeah, the fight. The wobblies. Yeah, there's still some people carrying that torch. There are, yeah. I don't know what the effect of it is.

I'm glad it's there, and I'm glad that the passion is still there and that the form still exists, but do you ever come up against that yourself when you're writing songs? Do you think like, well, who is this for? Well, I've thought what the hell. Some of my songs are kind of weird, and I thought, what the hell is this? my songs are kind of weird, and I thought, what the hell is, who the hell, who could possibly like this? But I do it.

But your weirdest songs are like, Let's Burn Down the Cornfield. I listened to that three times. It's a little weird. But that's sort of about sex, though, a little bit, you know? Oh, is it? Okay. Well. But yeah, it's weird.

I thought it was more of an existentially terrifying thing like the guy boredom yeah boredom yeah exactly that's what it's about really and i think that those like those shorter it's a good subject that one yeah it is because that's where it all happens yeah in the boredom is where all the darkness comes that's right but like guilty is like that song the four stanzas of that, like they make me cry every time I listen to it. Because I personally can relate to it, which I don't know. Me too.

You can. Oh, yeah. Being in the wrong place, you know, hi. But that line, it's like, you know, it takes a whole lot of medicine for me to believe that it's somebody else. Absolutely. Oh, my God. Did you clap when

you came up with that uh no but i was i was i did because it was exactly right you know about about about taking drugs about yeah you know it's you you can look at the bottle and you don't know what's going to be ahead of you but if you look at the bottle in 45 minutes you say well i know how i'm gonna feel yeah you think it doesn't work out right right right it's bad it's always bad but you think it's going to be better that's right there's that moment where this will fix it yeah and it's i don't know what why i think i'm that was that broken but yeah when i wrote it i thought well that's that's that's right were you going through it well that's various times yeah you know uh but but uh but yeah i do know it yeah yeah well you certainly

that's one thing the 70s provided everybody was to be surrounded by that uh in it did in individuals like you know just people dropping from dope or booze or whatever the hell it was. Falling out. Yeah. And you'd run into people that really were sort of crazy. Sure. Much more frequently. And sometimes you didn't know they were crazy until two hours. You talked to them. After they laid down some pretty good tracks.

Yeah. You're like, man, that sounded great. Yeah. Who are you talking to? That's right. You're like, man, that sounded great. Yeah. Who are you talking to? That's right. You know. And you worry, meanwhile, all the time you're worried about yourself. Right.

Well, that's, I think most people are. Is this guy nuts, you know? Yeah. The whole world is a drum? Is it? Let me ask you this, because, like, you know, in listening to stuff you know all the way through you know again where does because i'll tell you and i'm embarrassed to say it that you know and i was poking around just listening to music which is what i do when i talk to musicians you know i

don't i don't think i ever listened to uh to van dyke parks's uh uh song cycle yeah i like until today yeah and i always knew of him because of the beach boys yeah sure but then like listening to that you know i was able to sort of identify because i listened to joanna newsom you know recently i had her on the show it's very good yeah but the orchestration that that seemed to be the area you guys were working in where the hell does that come from i mean i know it's like a branch of uh homo sapien that didn't become homo sapien homo robust we i think we thought then yeah uh that maybe pop music could go in that direction too like like using a drum was almost cheating right to move things along you know it comes from but does it come like you know european music you know classical music to some extent but like but

what about like copeland like sure oh the various composers gershwin right because it's an american that's where i come from yeah right a gershwin copeland joanna newsom comes from too right right but it's it's rare to hear. Like, it's still rare to hear it. And when you hear it, it's uniquely yours. It is in that kind of context. Yes, it is. In pop music. Yeah.

Yeah. Part of it might have come, well, from listening to Copeland or Gershwin, but not consciously. Yeah. But movies, too. You know, three of my uncles were motion picture composers and i thought well that's what i do with music when i when i grew up i mean it didn't look easy but did you go to the yeah you went to the studio with them sometimes yeah when they had orchestras sitting in there and they were conducting and that's's a big, I have in my ear the sound of a really great orchestra,

the Fox Studio Orchestra. Fortunately for me, I've got it. Yeah. And it made an impression on me. Right. I love the sound of an orchestra. I like it almost too well for pop music. I think I've torn songs up a bit

just to be able to arrange it the way I thought was right so I could put it in a place. Right. Particularly on the first record I made. Well, that's a big orchestra. It's fairly big, yeah. Yeah. This one's about as big.

On the new one? On this record, yeah. There's some similarities between the first record and this one, I think. Yeah, I mean, the first record is not only is an orchestra but you you don't separate it much i mean they're they're all there in a lot of the songs that's right they're there and four or five of them yeah yeah and and i you know listening to that and the sort of drop off from that to uh to to 12 songs complete right you just stripped it all down. Because it didn't sell.

And it's all been feeble attempts to try and do something that a lot of people liked. Yeah. The first one, like, I don't know what it sold, 6,000 or something, if that. Really? That's last week. That's the latest, I don't know. You're still getting those quarter but it was tiny yeah

yeah yeah and the second one so i got rid of everything yeah i think i'll try this you know do pop music and uh that's what i did and even though it was an evil uh mind process you know to make a decision that way i wrote all right yeah i never let that be affected yeah by by any kind of considerations but you know whether i liked it but but the thing is that but you know even venturing into pop music like in in the past you know before it seems like you made the first album you'd had you know of experience with arranging. You had written songs that were used. Not much with arranging. That was really something the first time I was in there with the orchestra. And orchestra's got some weight to it.

You go like this bum, and you're trying to go this fast, and they'll slow it down a little. You feel it, and you don't know, oh, come on, come on, come on. And what you do is eventually, I found out, you shorten up a little. But you can feel that. And it was, so I ended up doing a song, Davey the Fat Boy, that goes, I've been his friend. And they were slowing up, so it was like, I've been, I couldn't, it was, I built a mountain I couldn't climb. I did the track, and then I had to sing,

and I couldn't really. But also, it seems that throughout the non-orchestral stuff in those few albums and all the way through, you have a propensity to swing a bit. Yeah. I would imagine. I sure do. Yeah.

And there's a trick to get an orchestra to swing. It seems like that's what you're saying is, like, how do you get that? They can do it. Yeah. Now. Yeah. Particularly in this town. Sure.

It's hard. It was hard getting strings to shuffle. Right. Right. But. You can do it now. They do it. Yeah.

They've adapted. Some places,'s you know it's tough in linz austria but but they can do it here yeah and i really do another thing that i love too much is shuffles yeah drummers hate them uh really yeah well's... It makes it complicated. Right, because there's not... They can't all do it. Did you see that? It was absolutely shitty. Excuse me. It's all right.

You can say shitty. But in the movie about the drummers, what was the name of that thing? Oh, yeah, Whiplash? Whiplash. Yeah. They had a scene where they had a guy who was supposed to be bad drummer.

Yeah. And he was doing... Okay, do a fast shuffle. Yeah, yeah. So it was... It was a very lame bad drummer. Yeah. And he was doing, okay, do a fast shuffle. Yeah, yeah. So it was, it was a very lame attempt at being bad. I mean, nobody, a four-year-old wouldn't have been that bad.

Right, right. But they are a drag, and a fast shuffle, I mean, I don't even like to think about it. Right, right, right. But the slow one, that moves you.

It really does. Yeah, well, I mean, I love it. I don't know why. You can't track it? I spent a few years in New Orleans. When? When I was, well, I was like a baby, and then I'd go back in the summers until I was nine.

What got you there from here? My mother. She was from there? Yeah. So that must have been something. I guess it was. I mean, I remember it was hot and the river always meant a lot to me. But you don't remember music?

Well, it's everywhere there. It is, right? I don't specifically remember walking around in the quarter and saying, whoa, listen to that. At four or five? No. I mean, a lot of musicians i've talked to have like a better relationship with music than i have yeah i mean it's not something that i ever loved exactly but really though i mean i don't know i i mean really that's really a good question because uh i've compared to them no but i, it was always work to me,

I felt, you know, because my family felt kind of weight on it. Just in the sense that you had working musicians in your family, you decided that that was your profession. And they were pretty grim about it. You know, I mean, even my Uncle Alfred, who was as good as any film composer has

ever been, I think. Yeah. Even he I'd go in and see him at like 10. Yeah. What he had been doing I think. Even he, I'd go in and see him at like 10. Yeah. What he had been doing. I can't remember, the robe or something. Yeah. And he'd say, hey, what do you think of this?

He'd play me something, and I'd, oh, that's good. And he said things like, you know, he was like talking himself into it. He'd say, he said, you know, if things sound good on the piano, if they play on the piano, they'll sound good in the orchestra. Right. And I said, yeah.

But, you know, what am I going to say? I'm 10. Yeah. But you took it to heart. I took it to heart and I remembered it. Yeah. Well, I think that the difference is, is like whether you think you like music as much as other musicians

or know about it as much as other musicians, it seems to me that you know your musical style and more importantly your vocal and poetic uh phrasing is is unique to you and and as both of them are but you like to write songs i i'm yelling at you hoping i'd like that you'll agree with me i'd like randy you i'd like to believe that, but I never have written unless I had to. What, you mean to get a record done? Well, a couple times where you have to make a record, I ran out of money. Yeah.

Or writing songs on assignment for something, or a movie, doing the score for a movie, and there's a deadline on it. Right. I don't just go in there and let's, like this idea I had about the girl song, Ivanka. Yeah. A song for Lorde. I mean, I had that idea, and I said, oh, that's great. But I sort of restrained myself until it passed a little bit,

and I didn't go in there and work on it. I didn't want to. But might you like when you're bored yeah no i i no just that talking to you making me conscious of it i might do it just because it's a pretty good idea right now that when i just laid it out there i can see where it could go easy but you But you never... You could see where it would go. Sure. But you were never... I know you're being self-effacing a bit. No, I'm not.

Not about that, I'm not. I think it's an indictment. Yeah. What? I'm a forbissner. I am. I know. But you're also a very prolific guy

that never seems to fucking stop working. Thank you. Glad to hear that. I think I haven't. You haven't done enough? I don't want to really get into this. I don't think I've done enough, but okay. The new records, I'm satisfied it's good.

You know what I mean? To be doing good work in pop music at my age is is not usual no i think that i think it's great and i think it's a return to form in a way it sounds like the same guy as all the other ones do well look you you well you are the same guy but like i like okay so let's go back to this shift you know the the shift from from the orchestra to uh the 12th song. Yeah. Now, this was you saying, like, I'm going to make pop music, and then you pull in Ry Cooter, and you pull in those dudes from the Byrds,

and you're kind of doing a thing where, like, there was, you seem to be part of the movement of creating a new American music, you know, along with the band and, you know, whoever else was doing it at that time. Well, thank you. Grateful Dead, maybe. I don't know what was around. Well, they didn't get to it until a little later. But, you know, working with Rye, and, you know, no matter how much you think you don't know or like music, I mean, you were bringing together something that was unique.

Yeah. To do that stuff. They're certainly part of American music. And I am, too too as a writer. Yeah. That's a nice thing to say. I've never thought of it, but that's true. I'm part of it in some kind of way.

I've influenced a lot of songwriters, I think, in some way. But not to be so foolish as to write songs in character the way I do. Right. It's not like, come on, boys, and everybody follow me out of the trench. Right, yeah, yeah. People don't do it. What, write in character? Neil Young does it occasionally.

Right. But nobody does it much. Well, I was sort of blown away because i had nick low in here yeah and uh peace love and understanding right good song right but he wrote that the beast in me too yeah for johnny cash yeah you know and and when i and it was the first lesson i learned about songwriters were like i had really gotten in my head that nicolo was the guy in the beast in me no it like not not no i know right so i guess my point is i think a lot of you guys writing in The Beast and Me. No. We're not. No, I know. Right. So I guess my point is I think a lot of you guys

write in character. It's just a step away. Oh, it's different than they are, but it's not, it's usually a, well, not necessarily with Nick Lowe, but it's usually a romantic hero. Now, Patty may not be a romantic hero.

He may not think of himself as a romantic hero. Yeah. But he does when he writes songs i mean that's what he's writing right right uh all that all from that angle though he you're saying he as a songwriter is writing from a point of view not all no no no but a lot a lot of it it's a it's also in a very american sense of longing he he came and did uh when i got in the rock and roll hall of fame he came and he and Jackson

Brown and Jeff Lynn came down and we did I Love L.A. for everybody. And when he first started singing it, he didn't sound solid or good. But then he figured out how Tom Petty would sound singing I Love L.A. and he did it great. Yeah. It's interesting. Sometimes it's conscious, you know. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, say can and he did it great. Yeah. It's a, sometimes it's conscious, you know. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, say can you, you gotta find,

where Tom Petty is in the National Anthem, you know. And the only way you can know that is by knowing who that guy is from the years. And by trying it. Yeah. He's gotta do it. Yeah, yeah, but you know, those guys who have, Oh, yeah.

Yeah, that presence. They know, he knows who he is, yeah. Sure, sure, right. But like, also that shift from orchestra to that first round that that freed up your voice too it seemed like on the first record yeah that's very wise of you to say that i mean i kept wondering about that i mean it does sound stiffer and then i thought after that i said do i have to always do this yeah do i have to always beat right right right along yeah yeah

and then the the next one was sail away which is half and half like oh man that record yeah you must do you i you don't you're not one of these guys that's sort of like that's behind me no that's pretty good that's a fucking great record it had that record and bad love i think had the best songs that I wrote. Well, Bad Love, man. Like, I listen to that. That stuff seemed really close to the bone, man. It's good.

I don't, never. Never that I, let me think. Like, well, there's Great Nations of Europe on it. Yeah. The thing about Karl Marx, and Karl Marx was a boy. And I Miss You. I Miss You, yeah. I wrote a love song for my first wife while I'm married to my second. Right.

That always goes over well. As a comic, I know that once you start talking about the ladies. It doesn't go well. It doesn't go well. There's towns you can't play it. Where you have to say, look, let's just keep this between us. No one record this. No one tweet that I did this song here. It's like at a certain point in your life, you think that somehow telling a girl about other women the experience you've had will matter.

They'll think you're a better fuck or something. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It doesn't work. No. It's a horrible idea. It's always like, do you want her more than me? There's no way. There's something that they're just

too smart for at all. Well, it's good that you learned that lesson again in 2000 and fucking or 1999. Oh, no, I didn't learn it. Really, that song for me was about writing. Right. It was about sort of this is so complicated. This is what you told her?

That's what I told them both. It scared the first one as bad as it did the second one. Yeah. Worse. But no, what I told them, it's about, oh, so weird, pretending to be sort of, or being ruthless about writing. I'll take a song anywhere I can get it. And I do think that.

Well, no, at some point you got to defend it. I actually had to tell, the only way I learned not to do jokes about specifically the relationship I'm in was by going publicly through a divorce on stage, working the whole thing out on stage. Oh, yeah. Yeah.

I saw you doing that. You did? Yeah. On TV? Yeah. No, at a comedy club too and on tv and it was not it was not comfortable material i thought i wondered it was funny right it was funny because it was so fucking painful but to the women it just gets i i've actually said to women i said look you know

if it's going to come down to you or the joke, it might be the joke. The joke might win. Feels good to say that kind of romantic, bold, writerly thing. That's what I did with this song. It's about faking to do that. Trying to get away with it. You wouldn't write a song, well, I have written about my kids. You have, right? kids you have right i have uh and something sometimes not you know not directly right but yes i have but you've written about the father and son relationship since the for a long time yeah it's amazing even on the new album to me it's a sort of amazing that other writers

don't branch out some, because there's so many subjects, you know? Well, I think it is about emotional risk on some level and being misunderstood or being understood. Both of those things could go wrong. But the way you feel about a joke, that it's worth almost anything, relationships and stuff, is the way I feel about a song.

I mean, it's always how i have judged myself more or less so yeah that you have the emotional integrity to do it yeah but you don't want to wear that like a badge like no like you know you want to get away with it i'll do anything yeah i want to get away with it you know i just want to do it yeah then i don't care so much yeah what happened well here's the concession i i made was like you know with this a recent joke that was about the relationship i'm in now yeah uh hurt her feelings and i said well i'll just move it back a relationship this girl i used to go out with yeah not not the thing i'm in now it's just a change of tense

you don't have to change the thing yeah it's still the same thing and then you wonder is it as funny right of course of course like if i'm not dealing with. Then you wonder, is it as funny? Of course. Of course. Like, if I'm not dealing with it in the present, is it as menacing as it is, you know, if I push it back in a relationship? Because it's so important. I don't know.

I've never been able to disabuse myself of the idea that what I was doing was very important to me. Not to the world, mean right i never thought that music is going to change the world like in the 70s and stuff i always thought that what madonna wore yeah had more to do with life in america right than anything anybody any great writer was writing right right then neil young was doing at the time or whoever was writing well then right well i guess it is sort of the the a lofty pretense that is crashing down on us now that you know all this introspection and and expression will would fundamentally change the way the world works i never believed that you never did no never uh maybe too much so. I mean, I would have liked to believe.

You were cynical. I was. I mean, the hippies and all that is so benign and such a good idea, Peace, Love, and Understanding. That's a great nasty song, but a great one. Yeah. Not but a great one and a great one. Yeah. not but a great one and a great one yeah uh no i never never believed that it was working that things would get better and that music would transform anything but you but you just believe that well clearly it was bringing people together and you know everybody you know seemed to uh to have their heart in the right place, but it didn't facilitate action necessarily.

No, I don't think so. I mean, sadly. Well, I think that the wave of that is crashing now to a degree, because I've done a couple bits on stage where I go, you know, why did we lose? And then I say, what have you been doing for the last eight years? Oh, you know, just working on me. Yeah, that's right.

And that's the legacy. It is. But what I've been thinking about this thing is, in a way, it's the legacy we ended up with right. But the people who voted for him, they're not as bad as he is. That's right. I mean, would they have him to house and and a guy like that or or be friends with them or on the bowling team or on i don't mean that in a pejorative way uh a bridge

to play bridge or whatever the fuck you know you'd want him to do they're not as bad racism you gotta look at that's that's bad well i think the narrator of right racism newman says racism is bad yeah but the narrative the narrator of your song rednecks yeah that that that is not changed you know that no it hasn't changed the only thing is that everyone knows that the north is just as almost as culpable as the south in in in the treatment of. Well, a lot of people don't want to believe it, and I think a song like that, when you put in the last 30 seconds of that song, it's pretty haunting and pretty...

Yeah, it is. It's the only part that the guy wouldn't know, you know what I mean? The character in that. Right, right, right. I did it anyway. Well, you had to, because that was the point. That was the balance.

That's right. It was the hypocrisy of the thing. I had to, yeah. Well, it's interesting about like in terms of how you approach politics in the songs, like political science or, but more like there's something beautiful. The one song I've listened to like three or four times in the last few days is Mr. President. Yeah. Really?

Yeah. Like, well, there's that swing thing again. But it's just, you know, we get it. You know but but it's just you know we get it you know like the the narrator is like we understand who you are but can't you can't you just throw us a bone yeah yeah can't you just see us and and this monster that's there now exactly it's deeper than my song but that's right yeah but this monster saw that and and now is using it to a bad end. But the sort of vulnerable plea of the working man, have pity on the working man. You can have your place, but we're out here.

We're dying out here. Absolutely. And he says, I love steel workers. And you know what that means. It's just like he saw Clark Gable in Pittsburgh, you know, that movie. I love Stewart. And, you know, they applauded him and they were happy to see him. Oh.

I think he sort of knows he's not good at anything. Oh, remember Nixon? Yes, but he's great at foreign affairs. Sure. Horseshit. Yeah, right. And this guy, you know know he's a great negotiator great business but i i don't know i doubt it no no i i in the narcissism will never enable him to

see no they the tremendous risk of the true narcissist is is the break in the narcissistic bubble so like because at the core of it is just a very tiny thing a very sad abandoned baby and is narcissism an actual uh pathologist yeah i i think they they down they uh they downgraded it in the dsm uh you know because i i told my father that he should be happy about that uh but did you really i did yeah yeah guess what you're not sick so did he laugh yeah he did he did well you know he's a he's a fortunate hybrid he's he's a total narcissist but he's also a depressive which looks like self-awareness yeah depressive about himself or about the times yeah both himself but but you know the vulnerability of being depressed is kind of a trick.

If a narcissist is a depressive, it almost looks like they're capable of empathy and things when they're depressed. Does he think he didn't live up to his potential? I don't know. I think he thinks that he— That thing they always beat you over the head with? I don't know what the hell. He just—he was—not unlike uh our president he was a bit of a sucker and he was a bit you know he liked being he liked hanging around tough guys and you know

he was a doctor my father and you know and he got my father too he liked it and and that's what happens was he a tough guy your dad no my dad got in fights oh he did yeah no my dad was not a tough guy he thought he was but he's a lot of a lot of wind you know what i mean but your dad was a scrapper yeah i mean he'd he'd there was a lot of yeah i said to smack i was gonna smack this guy there was a lot of that but there was a lot of times when he did oh yeah uh yeah he had a terrible temper well my brother and i remember he was in a parking lot at a restaurant. We were kids. And the kid gives him a key, and he says, thanks, sonny. And the kid says, I'm not your son, and wham! The kid didn't say it that rough, but my father took it badly.

Yeah. That was it? Nuts. He opened up on him? That was it. He clapped him? Was that the first time? I just, you know it was just rattling around and then they uh he fought like bob steel which is what it was a cowboy yeah in his cowboy movies

oh just got right in there like yeah like get as much done as possible golf course the boxing yeah get as much done before you go down as you can yeah that's what i remember how many you just got one brother one brother yeah yeah me. Yeah, me too. He's a doctor. Younger or older? Younger. Oh, yeah? Yours? Mine's younger.

Were you nice to him? I don't know. You know, we're painfully similar. I mean, as time goes on, no matter what we go through, you know, we come back to the- What I've noticed about friends, too, in general, is that, you know, there are guys that you see after not seeing them for 20 years, and you know the what i've noticed about friends too in general is that you know there are guys that you see after not seeing him for 20 years and you know that guy yeah and then there are guys you see after you haven't seen him in 20 years and you're like who the fuck are you yeah uh you know brothers hopefully you always know them yeah you know mannerisms and everything

he's a lot like me the look of their back you know something i haven't seen my back in 40 years right but i mean his back looks like mine sure and the way they move yeah very familiar you He's a lot like me. The look of their back, you know, something I haven't seen my back in 40 years. Right. But, I mean, his back looks like mine. Sure. And the way they move. Yeah. Like, very familiar. Very familiar. And there's no one else.

Yeah. It's in your genetics. Yeah. You know, yeah, we're tight like that. Yeah. But, you know, I think there's the tension of, you know, success, failure, whatever. You know, things happen. And, you know, shame.

All of that plays into the dynamics. But, you know know he's blood can happen yeah but like this like you were talking about your kids like you know i i feel like i remember very specifically enjoying you on the original david letterman show because maybe he would have you on a lot yeah and there was a you know god i don't remember what year it was but there you you always had great uh you're very great timing you And David asked about your son at that time. It must have been in the 80s. Oh, when he was in the punk.

Well, you said, well, that one's doing fine, but the other one has sort of gone bad. Yeah. Never bad. I mean, they're all very good. Yeah, yeah. How many you got? I got five.

Five kids. Four boys and then a girl uh-huh which a friend of mine had the same kind of thing happen and he said you know if the girl had been born first yeah would have thought the boys were retarded because there's no doubt that they're superior you know do you have any kids no i avoided that somehow yeah i think it was smart i i don't know i i think people find a lot of joy in it but i i think the fact that it was never at the you know at the front of my brain to do and i've been married twice must mean something yeah that it was protecting me again i'm a anxious worrying selfish person it is that serious a choice it should be to people you know i mean either if you do it yeah you should do it

wanting to do it yeah did you make that decision in that way then in the first one just i just didn't think you would be otherwise i mean everything i knew right was family right you know yeah and and so i always thought i'd be part of one and have my own. And both my wives were, I thought about what kind of mother they'd be, kind of. Oh, yeah? And they both were great. Yeah, I think that my relationship with family was more like, you know,

is there any reason to continue this? Yeah. I never quite felt that way. I mean, I had problems with my father, my mother to some extent. What did your mother do? You know, she was from Louisiana and she was sort of a Southern belle, I guess. And my dad met her down there and married her. And she couldn't, sort of got overwhelmed down here by the speed of things. You know, the South, those towns on the Gulf are slow.

Yeah. Galveston and New Orleans and Mobile. And so she would be getting to the pronoun of a sentence. Yeah. And they were done, you know. Yeah. So there was some degree of, she never became a fully sort of expressed person that I knew.

She was very proud of me. Like when I pitched in baseball, Little League, she would keep a box score and it was a big thing to her. And then when anything was about me in the paper, she'd cut it out. And I wasn't very gracious about any of that kind of stuff. I mean, I almost wish she weren't at the ball games. Yeah. I just wasn't as nice as I should have been.

So they didn't stay together. They did. Oh, they did. They didn't stay together. They didn't watch this. They watched the same show in different rooms. But they stayed together. Oh, yeah, yeah.

And most of it here in L.A all of it yeah so when now through the course of the career uh you know you did a lot of songs and a lot of songs that people covered i mean jesus like i think everyone has has recorded uh i think it's going to rain today a lot of people and they continue to do it is that is that would that be called an american standard at this point god you know maybe i mean the the uh it's really a decline in standards from all alone by the telephone uh uh well i guess there are standards out of the 70s i don't know about that yeah i don't think so but yeah but back then were you uh what was your relationship with the record companies you know did you do you have your publishing does it still benefit you every

time that happens i have uh i have it past a certain point like past some date up to that date i think uh i think it's gonna rain i don't think i have any of early first record. I didn't. I was with a publisher, I think. Oh, really? And then I did. Yeah. I would advise anyone now kids to keep their publishing. Sure. Well, I mean, record companies are barely holding on, I think.

Yeah, they really are. But they try and get that and they get performance money now. Record companies. They will. That's the that's the market performance and merch. Unbelievable unbelievable yeah that's right it's all merch that's where so this record's coming out and i'd like to be excited like oh i wonder what it'll do but i mean i don't guess it'll do anything you know and and it's just if my price goes up by two thousand dollars on the road right that's the accomplishment now so but what

about your relationship with with lenny uh lenny i knew since i was one year old is that how you say warren kerr warren kerr because he seemed to you know the relationship that you had with him seemed to you know really carry you through the first you know decade or so huh whole time yeah he was the first person i'd play things for since i was 15 and uh when he he was with the record company uh he i never experienced bad record company stuff because i was protected from it by him and he was he in music as a kid or how did he get into it because he's still he's still at it right yeah he's still at warner's and a and r uh he got into it his father was a violinist in the fox orchestra and then he started so you met him through your uncle i met yeah through i was only one or two but he was friends with my uncle yeah friends with the family. And he was interested in music as a kid, you know, jazz and stuff.

I remember Lenny Niehaus and he had all that stuff. And his father started a record company, which became Liberty Records. And when I started writing songs, I went to a couple publishers and they signed me at that company. Yeah. And then when I- At Liberty. People heard that, yeah, at Liberty Records publisher. Yeah.

And then people heard me singing on the demo and a couple, Lenny was at Warner Brothers by then. Oh, and a couple, Lenny was at Warner Brothers by then. And A&M and Warner's offered something, and I went with Warner, with Lenny. But he used to, what, he managed bands, or he just produced bands? He produced them. Yeah. He produced, you know, the Doobie Brothers,

Gordon Lightfoot. Oh, yeah. They were pretty big. Ricky Lee. Oh, yeah, that was big. But early on, was he? Oh, big. He had hits, you know. Yeah, yeah. They were pretty big. Ricky Lee. Oh, yeah. That was big. But early on, was he... Oh, big. He had hits, you know, while he was doing me.

Yeah. That wasn't his main thing, exactly. But early on, were you in a band? No. Never was in a band. No, I never was. I wish I were. You know, could have played well enough to play with an orchestra or... I mean, I do was. I wish I were, you know, could have played well enough to play with an orchestra or,

I mean, I do it because I wrote it. Yeah. But I almost wish I were in a band because I have trouble playing in time when I do have to play with, like, even at that Rock and Roll Hall of Fame thing, we're doing Isle of L.A. Yeah. And you know, when i do it by myself which is the way i perform usually you drop an eighth note here and there yeah you're in seven eight

yeah four four three four but with them you know they were looking at me you know come on come on and it was strange i said am i going to get thrown out of the hall of fame because i can't play with a goddamn band my own song but i uh they once asked uh jimmy keltner the drummer yeah he says how do you how do you follow or anything you know what he just i watch his hands so it's not exactly you know i got my own time but it's it's not standard that's a good drummer he's a great drummer yeah so like i actually i just i just remembered that I was going to tell you, I saw you when I was in high school.

Oh, yeah? Yeah, you know, I got turned on to you by, I got Good Old Boys because my buddy in seventh grade's hippie dad had it. Yeah. And we used to listen to it. But then I went and saw you because I was a huge fan of Sail Away and Good Old Boys, and I must have i it was must have been like 77 or something the albuquerque civic auditorium on the little criminals tour i've only played there once

and that and that was it yeah that was it and i remember because you know there was a strange protest of of little people and i a few of them but i remember i hung out i hung out because it was just you up there and you know in there, and you came out and said hi. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Good. I saw you then, and I was so thrilled that you were a decent fella. Oh, thank you very much.

And did I fall out with you when I had the Farbissner come in to Lauren? No, no. I was so happy that you noticed me because I've been such a fucking fan. That's a recommendation for Lauren. Well, yeah. That's what I thought. Because I didn't know what I was, and I said, well randy knows i'm a provisional i can't remember that you were i don't remember you being particularly i was cranky cranky you know yeah that's all that

means i know yeah yeah well i was definitely that yeah so like like and also like you know like when i when i found your song your song on the soundtrack of the performance. Yeah. With what was it? Long Black. I didn't write that. Long Gone Train. Gone Dead Train.

Gone Dead Train. I just sung it, yeah. You just sung it? Yeah, Jack Nitsche and Russ Teitelman wrote it. But you played it. Yeah, I played it. Yeah, and Rye was in there, too, right? Rye was in there, too.

We were the Rolling Stones, too, on not Memo from Turner. Did we do that? Yeah, Memo from Turner. I can't remember. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It sounds right. We were on one of them, yeah. Yeah, that Memo from Turner, because that's all slide, and that must be you playing piano. not memo from turner did we do that yeah memorable i can't remember yeah yeah yeah it sounds like we were on one of them yeah yeah that memo from turner because that's all slide and that must be you playing yeah i think we got it back yeah when i found that record i'm like i know something

about randy newman there and everybody knows this yeah he's on this record that's true and you played with the stone like with the stones that's like a highly thought of movie now no not with the stones they weren't there they just did a rough track of it. I think we did that one again, too. But had that groove again. I don't know if I played on it or not. Yeah. Had that groove again.

They had that. Yeah. That was theirs. Yeah. Are you still friends with Rye? Yes. I haven't seen him in a little bit, but still friends, definitely. Now, at that time in the 70s when you were hanging out with those guys and the guys from the Birds and whoever else was around. The Eagles. Van Dyke, the Eagles. Oh, definitely. Now, at that time in the 70s, when you were hanging out with those guys and the guys from the Birds and whoever else was around, Van Dyke, the Eagles.

Oh, yeah. Henley and Fry. Very early on, they sang on one of the records, right? A few of them. Yeah. Was Beefheart in the orbit? No. No?

He was out in the desert. Hardly anyone knew him. I don't know whether Cooter knew him well. He was just in that first incarnation of the band yeah and he'd make you know uh his records and and there was no they just came in from the desert yeah as far as i knew now that may be a misrepresentation of things but there would be people who know him who would call say yeah uh don i talked to don they never said i talked to don right They never said, I talked to Don.

Right, right, right. But they'd call, yeah, Don's got a new record. I said, Don. So he was not like, did you like what he was doing? Yeah. Not always, but sometimes. Yeah, yeah. He's a trip, right?

Yeah. I was very glad he was doing it. Yeah, yeah. But that wasn't your world. There were other worlds. Not really. I mean, there were other worlds, and this was just recording world. Yeah.

I mean, socially, I didn't see- Who did I see often? Sal Valentino, who sung with the Bo Bremels. Brummels. Yeah. I'd see him. Didn't they do some of your songs? Yeah, they did a couple, and he was a good guy.

Yeah. All right, so moving into, like, obviously we can't cover everything, but the two songs, like, I want to believe that It's Money That Matters and It's Money That I Love represented some sort of existential battle and realization on your part. Yeah, they're about how important money is. I mean, someone said, I don't like in that song how you criticized people who work for public radio and have backpacks. I said, I'm not criticizing them.

Far from it. You know, I'm all for it, for stepping out of the race. Yeah, yeah. it for stepping stepping out of the race yeah yeah uh it's just that since i write on a lot of subject money is really important in the world and i would that it were not yeah uh but i mean i try not to make it important to me when i write it isn't right right but whether the rest of my life is clean, I don't know. I mean. You need it. I went and played for a company, a company thing recently.

Is that something you do often? And usually you just get in and get out. No. But I did it. And I think of Neil Young, who hates any corporate thing at all. But there I was. So I'm playing. And they were just shitty.

So I just had to put my head down and then and think of money yeah and every time i've done something just for money i got screwed yeah like a festival in baton rouge with the rain and they didn't pay and yeah it's just it's like oh you get punished for that evil for just doing it yeah you've mentioned ne Neil like three or four times. Do you love Neil? Yeah. He's something, right? He's something, and he stayed good. Yeah. You know, which is not, you know, there's ups and downs like for everybody.

Right. But it isn't like he did his best work at 27 necessarily. Well, what's interesting about you and him is the bulk of your work is not beholden to time that it's a it's a unique thing you know maybe some production elements you know come and go yeah just in the 80s right record yeah yeah but but you know but the but you listen to neil young song from 50 years 40 years ago and you don't go like that's so 60ss. You know, from your first Al Mon, there's nothing that's tied into some kind of dated motifs that are pop music. No.

Yeah. That's good. That's good. That's some timeless shit. I didn't do a Mambo record in the 50s. But yeah. I think you've incorporated some Mambo elements towards the end of songs.

Oh, yeah. I definitely do. On the new record, I think. Yeah, there it is. oh yeah towards the end of songs oh I definitely do on the new record I think yeah there it is the Celia Cruz thing yeah yeah yeah she was the queen of the mambo

yeah yeah so when did the soundtrack start when did you realize that you were going to follow in the path of your family to your uncles to do soundtracks

I think in the early 70s I did the first one I did a movie called what the hell was the name of that thing hold it oh my god it's the one about the town quitting smoking First one, I did a movie called, what was the name of that thing? Hold it. Oh, my God.

It's the one about the town quitting smoking. I can't believe I forgot that. Oh, the Dick Van Dyke movie? Yeah. Cold Turkey. Cold Turkey, yeah. Did that. That was Norman Lear? Yeah, director.

The challenge of, well, with Cold Turkey, it was songs. No, it was a score. And there was one song in it. The challenge was writing for orchestra, it was a score. And there was one song in it. The challenge was writing for orchestra, which really scared me. Yeah. I had an orchestrator who was great, famous orchestrator. He was Jerry Goldsmith's orchestrator, Arthur Morton.

And I was loathe to suggest. I'd write something, and i'd sort of let him orchestrate it uh and he said well give me you know give me some ideas you know orchestration later and toward the end of the picture i did some stuff and after it i always i did it mostly but i mean i was i it because of my family or something and writing for orchestra uh it just scared the shit out of me well it's a big job in a way right yeah a lot of people looking at you waiting it's a lot of people looking and and but like my uncle did what he said was true that if it sounds okay on the piano it'll be okay in the band but like it seems to me that like the natural and ragtime uh played to your strengths yes uh

they did i i don't know why well they don't make movies like that anymore i've had about eight animated ones in a row yeah uh it got me a lot of recognition cars three it did in places that i would never have had right you know when i have assignments yeah you where you can't say shit piss fart fucking damn yeah uh i'll write you know you got a friend in me i'd sound like a used car salesman and if i wrote that right as a me but i i'd like to bust myself out of that box i've got myself in and just write a straight when somebody let me from the second picture yeah and from cars those are like the straightest things i i write right i'm getting further and further away from any mainstream and the stuff i'm doing right now yeah well yeah i mean but that's it's sort of like i wonder if

that's bittersweet to you that you know all the grammys and the oscars come for the cartoons yeah is it no no i don't i don't take that as well i don't think it's not like you know you don't oh yeah i would have liked to got a uh a nomination for like album of the year or something one of those times yeah yeah but i know i knew that's not coming that that you know awards are not it's easy to say this and i but i actually really do mean it yeah they're not a measure of anything that i accept this is valid they're a measure of pr yeah they very often they very often are yeah but those songs it's weird the songs that you did for the animated films were not they're they weren't a compromise they sound like randy newman so no

they sound like me yeah they do But the lyrics are what they wanted. Right. Was they want to emphasize the friendship. So I said it four times. And that was it. That's the job. Yeah. I'm glad.

I think one of the things that I'm confident about that I do best is right to assignment. Yeah. confident about that i do best is right to assignment yeah i mean if they want an albanian waltz about a goat herd i could do it yeah do a little research yeah pull it together then just do it well i mean it's it i guess left to your own devices it it still seems to me difficult to to believe that like given all the albums that you did outside of uh uh soundtracks yeah that uh you know you're compelled to to write songs whether you're on assignment or not i'm not you keep saying i don't do it i i uh you got a record coming out that's why we're here yeah i i do i mean ever but it's like you you remember singing in the rain?

Yeah. There was a montage about their careers. And when they started their careers, they were in low form of burlesque. And they're going all over the stage. Yeah, da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da, moving around. The next one, they're doing a review somewhere, St. Louis, and they're a little slowed down. By the time they're in the Sigville Follies, you know, at the end of this montage, they're barely a review somewhere, St. Louis, and they're a little slowed down. By the time they're in the Sigville Follies, you know, at the end of this montage,

they're barely moving around. You know, they're just a little gesture, you know, Newman Singh's greatest hits of whatever it is. But I mean, in the 70s, I put out three records, four records, I don't know. Then lately, they've all been like 10 years apart. I mean, it's, and there's no reason for it uh well i was doing movies somewhat but still yeah i do feel compelled you know the way i feel compelled is that i want to do i don't want to be dying and say, oh, I wish I'd written this. Yeah, yeah.

It's stupid, but I do feel that. Yeah. Well, I mean, you did the Faust Project. Yeah. I mean, that wasn't an assignment. No, I enjoyed that. Yeah. There was so much different stuff going on, people dancing to stuff,

and there was always something to work on uh and it was constructed as what would you call it is it a it was constructed as a uh broadway vehicle yeah like a musical yeah it was a musical straight ahead yeah uh but uh and it had you know the critics liked the score and didn't like the book not the musical book

not Gertrude's book yeah yeah personally I liked it yeah it's a good story in a way it's one of the it's a phenomenal story

it's great the devil and I love all this I love stuff about heaven yeah and uh i've written a number of songs where i got heaven in it and god god talk god sent it like one of your favorite characters yeah he really is and the devil you know the devil's you know it's like god's desk is completely clear and and the devil's like tons of. And he doesn't understand how this guy can beat him. That's what I did.

And they couldn't comprehend what I was getting at. So it didn't, you ran it a couple of times. Didn't get past Indiana. Oh, really? Chicago. Yeah, we did it in San Diego and in Chicago. Yeah, I remember listening to the album of it. Goodman Theater, yeah.

But is that something you still want to do, a musical? No. It's done. It was an unwelcoming atmosphere. Really? Yeah. It's a tough idea. It wasn't like, come on, you know.

Right. Well, it seems like not like everything else. It's got to be spectacular. Everything's a superhero speed. I don't know what it's got to be, but they've got this. Maybe things have changed with something that's genuinely funny like book of mormon and and and worked but the the form of it you have to have a big opening number and and certain there are certain forms that you have to follow right i don't know whether book of mormon had that or not

did you see it yeah it's funny's funny. I got to see it. Yeah, you should. I mean, it's really what musical comedy should be. Oh, great. Did anyone ever do like a big, like a musical based on the songs of Randy Newman? How'd that go? Three times.

Yeah? I don't know. You know, I had problems with it, but it was noble efforts and yeah in each case yeah now I one of the persons I recently got into in sort of a compulsive way a couple years ago is Harry Nelson yeah and you know and he did that amazing record he did of your songs quite a thing you know to do a for someone who wrote as well as he did to do an album of nelson plays newman yeah and did you were you guys friends yeah yeah he was kind of a amazing guy right he was he's one

of those guys that had his problems but he had a low opinion of himself yeah you know uh we all did to some extent but he really did hell of a voice voice, though, huh? Hell of a voice. Oh, my God. And he really could sing. All of a sudden, we were close. Yeah. And then, all of a sudden, I never saw him again. Oh, yeah.

I don't know what it was. Booze. Yeah, I could do it. You know, your brain twists up. I was thinking about that. You know, there's a reason why alcohol came down through the years rather than something else. I think it's like a powerful, powerful thing.

Oh, yeah. It's always in. It's a bigger deal than maybe the other stuff is. Well, yeah, it's like it's a real Jekyll and Hyde shit, man. It's a real Jekyll and Hyde shit man it's a real kind of personality changer it's a and it's I don't know why but it's it's the most accessible thing you would think weed now but there's something about alcohol it always it's when coke was in big that couldn't I knew yeah people don't want to be sped up they want

you knew either heroin or alcohol is coming, both probably. Right, right. Well, those are the ones, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, it's fucking, well, you're lucky you have dodged that, and that was not something that compelled you. I didn't like cocaine that much. No?

No. Yeah, because eventually it's just you alone wondering if you're going to die. It's always going to end up there. And wondering how you, why is it you're seeing someone from 14 years ago? Hi, mind if I come over? Right, exactly. Or hanging out with a guy you don't know for three days. That's right.

Who's that guy? How do I get him out of my house? In Long Beach. Yeah. So there's a song on this new record, too, that seems to be about a son, is it? Which one? Wandering Boy? Not directly.

Yeah. It's a sweet, sad song. It's a very sad song, yeah. It's about, well, I used to go to, you know, L.A. You grew up here? No, Albuquerque. L.A. doesn't have any sense of community in some ways. Yeah.

And I knew a lot of people say from cleveland yeah and they've had parades yeah parties and they wanted to be out of cleveland yeah but they did have that yeah and uh i'd go to this one place one guy's house in the neighborhood every year and then i'd miss three years four years and you'd see a kid that I, and then 20 years later, I'd say, oh, yeah, and I'd say, what happened to so-and-so? And there's, sometimes there's holes. The kid was, as you were saying earlier, fell out. Yeah.

And I thought about that and how it would be if your kid had, you know, were the homeless people you see on Ocean Avenue and downtown. Yeah. So that's it. That's what the song is. Yeah, yeah. It's like it's one of those gut punchers.

It does work that way in person. Yeah. I mean, a lot of your songs are sort of like that because they leave that space to have the emotion best of them yeah yeah and the other song that like i i was obsessed with i don't know where it came from is uh you know last night i had a dream you were in it and i was in it with you yeah it just it's funny yeah like that song there's just something about honey can you tell me what your name is it's like it's very 70s yeah but but it's insulting and weird yeah that you know you know like because what my mind goes is like whatever was going on in the barn was not good and there were a lot of men that's right and she didn't know you yeah why do you think that was 70s? Because of this vaguely psychedelic nature of events.

Yeah, and also that sound. In The Attempt, that was the second record, I made a single of that song with four electric guitars, thinking that'll do it. And it's really one of the worst records ever made. Okay, I keep backtracking, but with Sail Away, do you see Good Old Boys and Sail Away as concept records in a way? Like, are they whole pieces?

Good Old Boys was almost a whole piece and was a whole southern piece. Part of it was by Huey Long a bit. The Kingfish song? Yeah, and Louisiana. Oh, yeah, yeah. The Flood was in 27 uh and about the guy birmingham and then i thought i had the right another song to explain the guy after i wrote rednecks birmingham yeah so i wrote marie and roland yeah uh so it was it was a bit of a concept

album sail away no i i don't see it as such i always felt like sail away was some sort of weird kind of uh uh like you know this is america record well i'm interested in america very much yeah uh and and uh written about it uh trying to think of what was on there god song is on there isn't it yeah yeah yeah it was uh yeah that's yeah that's a good song it was um yeah god's song you can leave your hat on yeah memo to my son yeah yeah yeah that that was i like that burn on memo yeah yeah burn on about cleveland the river yeah yeah now do you would were these things that you would sit and think about are these things that you drove past uh the the river i saw yeah uh in cleveland on fire yeah oh you did well on television yeah sure sure sure right right right

just like our president a lot of television yeah the uh uh the flood i read uh yeah it was in my family you know where they do stuff like that uh and i read a biography of ue long yeah that was good better than all the king's men i thought yeah yeah uh and you can leave your hat on that one got some traction too right yeah it did it but it got traction when someone did it like a sixth higher and they baby take off you know they did it way up like that right i didn't think of that yeah yours was a little darker, a little more menacing. And then all of a sudden it becomes this sort of soul song. Exactly.

I mean, I liked it the way I did with Cooter. You know, you could barely hear me sing it. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But the success it had was when Tom Jones and Joe Cocker took it up. Yeah. Joe Cocker. That guy could sing too well. He really could sing.

It's interesting, the tone. Like, I wonder how you experience that because like even with like a you know i talked to springsteen which was kind of amazing yeah yeah i'll bet but but like if you hear the original version of born in the usa you know versus that's right like you know like how when you have a song that goes out there you know obviously you want people to play the songs but when they do something that is contrary to the tone and that was something he did on his own i don't know what the reasons were i didn't get into specifics with him but the folk version of born in the usa is a dark song it is yeah but like when you when someone else does what you just said they did to your song is there a moment where you're like what are they doing to my kid well i'll tell you it's not i didn't mean it as celebration right but you know i i i so what

who are you to moralize or begrudge people no i'm not you know did a tap on the shoulder no that's wrong yeah yeah yeah it's a much more dark song it's not i mean that's why i stopped when people would say gee this is a great song i would say i i don't like that one much because it you know makes you think that you think they're stupid or oh yeah you never you can yeah i learned that the hard way just keep your thoughts to yourself that's one you learn the hard way right yeah like oh that song why are you doing that song yeah you say that to three dog night you would have been a few bucks lighter i tried to say it and i was stopped oh really well when i heard the record i said you know they had had eight number one records in a row or something like that and i didn't want to

be responsible for them not doing it and i was going to call him and say well maybe it isn't don't release it as a single mama told me when i knew yeah but i was going to call him but lenny stopped me or someone did yeah just let him do it and let it let it and it was a big hit right it was yeah it was the number one i think number one or number two so what are you doing yeah what are you doing with yourself now are you going to go on the road yeah do you like it yeah uh once i get into it. People come out, they're happy to see you. Yeah, they're happy to see me. I think they come out better now than they ever have, I think.

Oh, really? What's the audience mostly? Pseudo-intellectuals. Yeah. The audience is over 40, but with more 20-year-olds than I've seen in 30 years. Well, that's the beautiful thing about music, man, is that anybody can come to it at any point in their life,

and you're never late to the party. That's right. You know what I mean? That is. I'm always surprised when it's like a festival, and I've been the last act in some festivals, and there are people packed out, and you drive by them, and they're just packing up to go.

It was before I got on. But, I mean, it's just amazing that people will endure that. Sure, man. Because I don't think I'd do it. Oh, yeah, I don't. I say that when I perform comedy sometimes. It's like, I don't know how to have a good time. I'm not sure I would have come to this show.

Yeah, I'm sure I wouldn't have. But thank God they do. Thank God they do. And they're right. It's better than just reading or sitting home watching television maybe. Why don't you do another live record? I don't know. There's no point to it for me.

I don't think it's not what I do. Where was that one in 1970 or whatever recorded? Bitter End. Yeah. So I did Lonely at the Top in front of about four people on the third show. You know where they do? We're Friday and Saturday at three shows. Sure, sure.

Both nights? Yeah, both nights. Oh my God. So you're recording your live album and it's four people on the third show on Saturday? It was about that. It was locally at the top. Yeah.

But those are beautiful moments, aren't they? Yes. Those are the, you know, the awful moments sometimes are the things that you remember most. And they're not so awful. Right.

They are beautiful moments. Sure. I wonder what the story of the four people told. We saw him once. It was just me and two other guys. It was the best show we ever saw. Yeah. I mean, you can hear myself on The Star Had a Dream.

I'm applauding. That's me. Yeah. All right, man. Well, I hope this was a good experience. Very. I really enjoyed it. I'm applauding. That's me. Yeah. All right, man. Well, I hope this was a good experience. Very. I really enjoyed it. Thanks, Randy.

Amazing. An amazing day for me that I think back on. There's a few that I think back on. And I'm just so glad I had that conversation. I had that opportunity to do that and that we got along. Randy Newman's new record, Dark Matter, will be released on August 4th. Soon. Coming up.

So that's it. I don't know what to do. What do I do next? When do I get to talk to Albert Brooks? Hey, by the way, Vice President Al Gore is supposed to come by. And, you know on the show soon so hopefully that'll be before the sky

catches on fire Anywho, don't say that Anyhow, I haven't played guitar in a while because I think there was something about playing with musicians and doing the work on songs that mildly diminished my confidence in myself.

But I cleaned everything up in the garage, and I've gone through a lot of pedals and boxed a lot of stuff up, and maybe I'll just noodle for a second. Like the old days, like a few weeks ago. Thank you. Boomer Lives! season and you can get anything you need delivered with uber eats well almost almost anything so no you can't get a nice rank on uber eats but iced tea ice cream or just plain old ice yes we deliver those goaltenders no but chicken tenders yes because those are groceries and we deliver those too along with your favorite restaurant food alcohol and other everyday essentials order uber eats now for alcohol you must be legal drinking age. Please enjoy responsibly.

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