Randy Newman

Desert Island Discs

BBC

Society & Culture, Music Commentary, Music, Personal Journals

4.4 • 13.7K Ratings

🗓️ 19 October 2008

⏱️ 37 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Kirsty Young's castaway this week is the American composer, singer and song-writer Randy Newman. Colleagues say he stands shoulder-to-shoulder with musical legends Cole Porter and George Gershwin. He first made his name by writing mordant and often satirical pop songs - including A Few Words in Defence of Our Country, Political Science and Short People. For the past 25 years he has been better known for his Hollywood film music - including writing the scores for the first four Disney/Pixar films. He held the unique distinction for being Oscar-nominated 15 times without winning until 2002, when he picked up the award for Best Original Song for If I Didn't Have You from Monsters Inc. His songs are often written from the point of view of unlikeable characters - from slave masters to stalkers - it was a style, he acknowledges, that wasn't universally liked, but he adds: "I wouldn't have it any differently".

[Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition of Desert Island Discs]

Favourite track: The 3rd movement of String Quartet No.16 in F Major by Ludwig van Beethoven Book: The Divine Comedy (with translation) by Dante Alighieri Luxury: A piano.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello, I'm Krestey Young, and this is a podcast from the Desert Island Discs archive.
0:05.0	For rights reasons, we've had to shorten the music.
0:08.0	The program was originally broadcast in 2008. My castaway this week is the singer-songwriter and composer Randy Newman. He is a master of modern American music. His peers
0:35.2	regard him as standing shoulder to shoulder with the likes of coal-porter and George Gershwin.
0:39.2	They say he may well be the greatest living songwriter that America has produced, though his high
0:44.8	statistical style with songs like short people have sometimes got him into hot water.
0:49.4	His film scores have won him an Academy Award and numerous grammies.
0:53.0	Yet despite this, the man himself is typically downbeat
0:56.0	about the appeal of his acutely elegiac lyricism
0:59.0	and soaring movie soundtracks.
1:01.0	He says simply, I've been a pretty good musician. Being a pretty good
1:07.2	musician was... You did say that? Are you happy with that now? Yeah, I'm a very good probably qualified with a probably composer that I would say.
1:18.0	And I've also heard and I'm not sure if this is true that you don't really relish being interviewed?
1:24.0	No, I like being interviewed.
1:26.0	This was the most difficult sort of preparation for any interview I've ever done.
1:31.0	This was hard really.
1:33.0	Because of the eight.
1:34.0	It made me think I wouldn't take any music.
1:37.0	Why? Because it's better to have nothing than to just have it.
1:41.0	Because the thing is, it's never been exactly where I went for relaxation, you know.
1:47.8	I'd watch television.
1:48.8	When I go to sleep at night, I like a voice going on that isn't my own so you know I end up listening
	...

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