I wrote briefly about the pending new release from Randy Newman, and now thanks to Tampa Bay pop music writer Sean Daly, I’ve got a few more details to share with you about the album. The album, called Harps and Angels, is in stores on August 5th.
Sean writes:
NPR’s All Songs Considered is raving about the upcoming Randy Newman album, Harps and Angels, calling it the sound of a “languid Southern summer” and comparing the 10-track disc to both Sail Away and Good Old Boys. I’m not sure I can think of higher praise. This is the 64-year-old’s first batch of new studio stuff since 1999’s Bad Love. A PR blurb says the album covers “matters of life and death, memory and loss, the discontents of the rich and famous, the problems of the poor, governmental malfeasance, corporate cynicism, and the veritable end of an empire, namely, our own” — but isn’t that EVERY Randy Newman album?
After years of being a casual Randy Newman fan, a concert last year in nearby Akron, OH, elevated me to full-blown “fan” status. We cynics have to stick together in this world, so it is unexplainable to me how Newman remained so far on the edge of my radar for so long.
No longer will that be the case.
During the Akron show last year, Newman shared a new track with the audience, “A Few Words in Defense of Our Country,” and you can watch video of a performance of that track, right here. The lyrics incorporate material that also ran as an op-ed piece in the New York Times in January of last year.
Read more about the new album right here.
Here’s a short playlist of my Newman favorites, including “I Miss You,” a song (download) that floored me when I first heard it at the Akron performance. Newman noted that he had written the track for his ex-wife, the partner of a marriage that had ended years ago.
And in fact, Newman is remarried since that marriage ended, but “I Miss You” makes apparent the fact that Newman had to get some remaining feelings out there in the open.
“I Miss You” accomplishes that and is genius stuff, and is about as uncomfortably honest as one can get in a song.
Check out this playlist, and also scroll to the end of this post for some great professionally shot video from 2006.
Relevant Links:
Live in 2006 (professionally shot):
I’m Dead (But I Don’t Know It)
I Miss You
You Can Leave Your Hat On
Political Science