Q 6

PLAYBOY: Your uncle Alfred won nine Academy Awards for his scores for such movies as The King and I and Alexander's Ragtime Band. Did that make your Oscar nomination particularly gratifying?

Randy Newman: I guess I was gratified by it. I knew I wasn't going to win, but I went for a weird experience, and it was a weird experience. I sat next to Johnny Williams, and Liberace did a medley that included our music. He played Ragtime and Raiders of the Lost Ark. You know what they have at the Academy Awards? They have people who sit in your chairs when you're gone. Johnny Williams and I went to the bathroom and--ppfffttt!--two people were in our seats. That way, if the camera pans the audience, there are no empty seats.

Q 7

PLAYBOY: Since Ragtime, do you follow music written for Broadway and for films?

Randy Newman: I don't enjoy Broadway music. I haven't seen a Broadway musical I have enjoyed. Oh, Fiddler on the Roof, years ago. How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying. The movie of The King and I. I did admire the music in A Chorus Line. But I saw Cats and Sweeney Todd and actually saw Chorus Line, and I tell you, I felt like I was from Yugoslavia and didn't understand English. I felt like I used to feel at high school football games when I'd be getting loaded in the corner and the crowd would be going, "Yea! Yea!" and I didn't feel a part of it. I wanted to--I'm telling you--because I paid $29 or something for a ticket. At Cats, I kept looking at the price of the ticket. To me, there is more in Kiss on My List than in all of Cats.

Movies are another story. They are the great art form of the 20th Century. One of my favorite scores is my uncle Al's How Green Was My Valley. I like his Song of Bernadette. I like Superman, by Williams. I like Patton, by Jerry Goldsmith, and Stagecoach. Psycho, by Bernard Herrmann. Chariots of Fire was a good score. I noticed it only the second time I saw the movie. The first time, I was too bitter, because of the Academy Award [laughs] . I wouldn't have done it that way. It was the Twenties, and I would have had an English band perform the score instead of synthesizers, but then it wouldn't have won the Academy Award and the picture wouldn't have made 80 billion dollars. There are a lot of good scores. I like Gone with the Wind, by Max Steiner. Leonard Bernstein did a good job for On the Waterfront. When I go to movies, I notice the scores more than anything else--which is bad, because you can't tell whether a score is good out of context of the movie. A good score shouldn't jump out at you.

Q 8

PLAYBOY: Are there performers and songwriters whose work you particularly follow?

Randy Newman: Yeah. Neil Young. I don't know about his new computer stuff, but I may grow to like it. I don't know whether he can compete with people who have grown up with synthesized brains. It's sort of rudimentary music for someone who is as complex and talented an artist as he is. I like Seger. Emmylou Harris. George Jones. I admire Hall and Oates and Michael McDonald very much for writing those things that are complex harmonically.

Lyrically, there are only a few people I pay much attention to: Young, Rick James, though he only did one really good record I love. Van Morrison. I like Rickie Lee's lyrics. Prince's, X's. I admire some stuff critics absolutely hate. Rod Stewart. Some people don't like his persona or something, but I take him seriously, because he can relate a lot of information in a short amount of time, which is very hard to do. He is expressing something that is true. He brags a little and stuff, but Only a Boy, on his last record, is a very good song. He is the best of English rock. People won't like that, but that's the way I feel. Elvis Costello may be better, but I can't hear the words all the time. I bought a songbook, so I'm looking.

Q 9

PLAYBOY: What music did you grow up on?

Randy Newman: Mostly classical. I always studied music and figured I'd be a musician. And then Ray Charles, Fats Domino and that sort of R&B. Sonny Boy Williamson. John Lee Hooker. And when I got into high school, the Beach Boys.

Q 10

PLAYBOY: You're the first to admit that your work hasn't sold that well, with the exception of Short People. Does it bother you after so many years in the business?

Randy Newman: Yes. It's a drag. I would like to be able to go on this tour and not worry about the poor promoter's taking a beating. It would be nice to be a part of mainstream America, the way Seger is--you know, to be on the stations. I listen to his albums and my albums, and there isn't a great deal of difference in how hard they rock or in the content of the lyrics. I mean, he's got a bigger voice, but the disparity isn't the difference between having a number-one record in the country and not getting played. Programers don't think I'm right for rock radio or something, but I don't know why. I sell records in Germany, France, Holland, Belgium. Switzerland and Norway and stuff. In Europe, the record is number 20 or something, and here it is number 8,000,000. They are really serious about music there. They listen intently. Radio isn't as strict. They aren't afraid to play something different. Maybe stations here think that if they played my records, people would turn off the radio or something. It's a little frustrating, but it doesn't bother me too much. But my songs should do better here. The stuff is real American, it seems to me.

Q 11

PLAYBOY: Is there a certain satisfaction that comes with being out on the fringe?

Randy Newman: Well, there is satisfaction in appealing to the people I appeal to and in being critically received the way I have been, but it's not enough for me anymore. I can't change the way I write, but I would change anything else. [Thoughtfully] I'm whining, aren't I? You should cut some of this whining about not selling records. I hate whining, don't you?

Q 12

PLAYBOY: Is the darker side of things--the trouble in paradise rather than paradise itself--the side you see the most?

Randy Newman: You see, I don't necessarily know the places I am writing about well at all. Of those on this record, I've been to Miami once. I've never been to Cape Town, and after Christmas in Capetown, I doubt I'll ever go; I don't think they'll invite me. I know San Francisco pretty well and I know L.A. very well. But for Baltimore, I just went through the place once and immediately went home and attacked it. Of course, there is a danger that your observations may be totally inaccurate. Before Bertolt Brecht had ever seen America, he had done this stuff about Chicago and gangsters. It wasn't true, but it was more interesting than the stuff he wrote after he had seen it. I remember seeing this one side of Baltimore in National Geographic: all the white-marble stairs and the pretty porches. It was just great-looking. But when I wrote Baltimore, it was about a different side. And I had no case when the mayor was angry about my song and Miss Baltimore gave me a bunch of letters saying things like, "Randy Newman is not human." I had no case, because I didn't know the town well.