Younger generations are most familiar with 73-year-old Randy Newman
as the singing voice behind the theme songs of most of the Pixar films,
including “Toy Story” and “Monsters, Inc.”
But since the ‘60s,
he’s also been singing about things like racism and dirty politicians.
There isn’t a lot of political pop music these days,
but now Randy is back after a nine-year hiatus
with a new album that takes on everything from Vladimir Putin to police brutality.
— It’s a jungle out there,
Disorder and confusion everywhere…
— I was really excited to hear that Randy Newman was here,
because I love him.
He’s got a wisdom, for sure.
— A little dark.
— If you paid attention, you’d be worried too…
— I’m kind-of in love with Randy Newman.
And so I teach some of his songs in my classes.
I teach “Sail Away” to talk about the transatlantic slave trade,
and then I teach “Political Science” to talk about American politics.
— Europe’s too old,
Africa’s far too hot,
But Canada’s too cold,
And South America stole our name,
Let’s drop the big one,
There’ll be no one left to blame us…
— You’ve written so many things that take on these really serious subjects.
And they do bounce along—
they’ve got these really happy tunes…
— Down here, we’re too ignorant to realize,
That the North has set the nigger free.
Yes he’s free to be put in a cage,
In Harlem, in New York City,
They’re gatherin’ ’em up, from miles around…
“Rednecks” bounces along
and it’s an enormously significant point it’s trying to make:
If you think that the North is morally superior to the South,
the southern guy is saying, you’re wrong.
That’s it. That’s all it was.
— So… are you still performing “Rednecks”?
— No.
— Why are you so hesitant about it?
— Because of the word.
It’s awful.
— There is an entire generation for whom you are the “Toy Story” guy.
Does that weird you out at all?
— It’s odd, because the nature of what I usually write
is so far from those Disney songs.
This is a song about one of the most powerful people,
new song,
in the country.
Putin puttin’ his pants on,
One leg at a time…
— Why did you decide to write a song about Putin?
— Because I was interested in the aspect of his personality
that led him to have all those pictures with his shirt off.
He’s the richest man in the world.
He’s the most powerful man in the world.
And he wants to be, you know, Tom Cruise.
…and when he takes his shirt off,
He drives the ladies crazy,
When he takes his shirt off,
Makes me wanna be a lady…!
— So this is sort-of the obvious one.
You’ve got a song about Putin…
— Yeah.
— …where’s the Trump song?
— I wrote a Trump song, a year and a half ago.
But it was so vulgar that I didn’t choose to do it.
— Can you play it?
— Uh… no, I can’t anymore…
There—no, I can’t.
— No, you just played it!
— This whole interview was designed to trick me
into singing this stupid Trump dick song.
— There is subtlety in a lot of the songs that you do.
So why write a song like that?
— It’s not a subtle subject.
You know, he’s not.
That’s one of the main things that I can’t forget, is that
there are a lot of nice people who voted for this guy.
There aren’t 40 million assholes in this country.
Not that many.
There are that many racists, however.
So can you be a nice person and be a racist?
Maybe not.
You’ve got a friend in me,
Yeah, you’ve got a friend in me…