Randy Newman is so influential that his songwriting style has become shorthand for smart and searingly witty. The albums Good Old Boys and Sail Away are two of the best themed records to come out of the early 1970s. And in an entirely separate career, sometimes concurrently, Newman has scored 30 movies going back five decades, garnering him two Oscars and been nominated more than 20 times. But it took him two decades to be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. And despite writing some truly beloved songs (Toy Story’s “You’ve Got Friend in Me” is universal in its appeal generationally), he has never been known as a chart-topping artist. So, if anyone is ripe to have their story told, it’s Randy Newman.
As the chief pop music critic and editor for the Los Angeles Times during the prime of Newman’s music career, Robert Hilburn is the ideal person to tell that story. And he does so remarkably well in A Few Words in Defense of Our Country. Coming in at almost 550 pages, this book is clearly exhaustive, starting with his family’s migration from New York to California and his uncles’ careers making music for Hollywood films, leading to Newman’s own relationship with music, as well as his initial bucking of the family business making it as an album focused musician before flirting with and finally embracing his career as a composer of film scores. Over the last couple of decades, Newman has managed to create a solid track record in both careers simultaneously.
The book is well researched, including interviews from those closest to Newman, and was written with the musicians’ cooperation, making for a substantially robust bio. Almost as important as the interviews with those who know him the best are the remarks of fellow musicians talking about Newman’s influence on them as songwriters. Newman was never one to shy away from social themes like racism and inequality, and as a result, a song written nearly 50 years ago still rings true in 2024.
The book’s weight is likely to be an obstacle to those who don’t know Newman well, but for anyone willing to devote the time, A Few Words in Defense of Our Country is a fascinating read about one of the best pop/rock songwriters of the 1970s—a writer whose songs still come across as timely a generation after they were first recorded.
