Randy Newman - The Story of a Rock & Roll Band

Randy Newman & Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra,
cond. Roelof van Driesten.
Rotterdam, Netherlands, 1979

Category:

Music

Tags:

• Randy
• Newman
• ELO
• Electric
• Light
• Orchestra

[jeng3000]

Randy Newman gets major respect. Did anybody notice at the end he's looking up at the conductor? That means he actually CARES. Most artists will just do their thing and expect the conductor to do everything based on what the "star" is doing. But Randy actually cared enough to watch the conductor slow the piece down so that he slowed down his playing at the same speed as the rest of the orchestra. True professional.

[ex1le444]

before ELO they were in a band called The Move, great band check em out.

[JustAintthatWay]

@3000EJS yeah me too but im not sure if i like elo or should mock them either - grin

part of me still thinks newman's stuff is on the square and he's laughing at the 'in the know' crowd for 'getting it'

sort of an irony squared kinda thing but then again i got a lot time on my hands and am prolly just overthinking it

[3000EJS]

@newsduke Also, I was never sure if he really did love ELO or if he was making fun of the band.

[KOSMICKEN09]

@ex1le444 yes I discovered them via cheap trick-they've covered a bunch of their songs.

[bdsmithatgmaildotcom]

@rockermanmatt Wonderful Kasims indeed. My favorite is the bass player for Utopia... You are SO right: they really don't write 'em like they used to. Back then, "deep" referred not only to the depth of one's devotion, but the "depth" of a lover's "chasm". And "hard" not only meant "difficult", but also "erect". "Marie" isn't "soppy", though: it's sung from the perspective of (a very drunk) Donny Osmond to his sister. Boy, Randy sure did like writing songs about incest. What was up with THAT?

[rockermanmatt]

@bdsmithatgmaildotcom Really is. What an insight into the wonderful casums of the human brain. Ahh, songs about vaginal fisting, those were the days, eh? What a brain you must have.

The thing is, Randy doesn't do soppy very much. 'I Think It's Going To Rain Today' and 'Marie' really are quite soppy, but songs like 'Love Story' which some people interpret as being about staying together, is probably more about the fact that the guys kids send him off to Florida when he gets old.

[bdsmithatgmaildotcom]

@rockermanmatt I'm genuinely curious what the erection in "Living.." does for you. From my perspective, that double meaning only diminishes the song's impact. For me (especially in Nilsson's version), the lyric is a profoundly sad, emotionally direct (not erect) confessional. That's enough for me, I guess. Hey, did you know that the Bee Gees are the only band to have not one, but TWO top 40 hits about vaginal fisting...? "How Deep is Your Love" and "Love You Inside Out". Fascinating, eh?

[rockermanmatt]

@bdsmithatgmaildotcom Taht doesn't even make any sense. Do you even know what Real Emotional Girl is about? As I said already, I have been talking about song meanings and you have been talking about incest for no reason. You're not clever, and you've made yourself look an idiot.

[bdsmithatgmaildotcom]

@rockermanmatt I'm sure you know what "intentional" and "fallacy" mean, but I don't think you know what an "intentional fallacy" is. That's OK... until about 6 months ago, *I* wouldn't have been able to tell you what it was, either. And while you may not need to "rely upon Wikipedia to have a conversation", you clearly DO need to rely upon interviews with Randy Newman to find the erection in "Living Without You". Here's a little known fact: "Real Emotional Girl" was actually written about you.

[newsduke]

Randy Newman has written a lot of great songs, but this isn't one of them. When Randy sings about Turn To Stone and Telephone Line, all I can think about is how much better those songs are than this one