Hard Times Come Again No More Randy Newman
How The Movies Took Him from "Davy the Fat Boy" to "You've Got A Friend In Me" and countless Oscar nominations.
"I beloved when I perform on the Oscars," he said, "thinking of a billion Chinese people watching and thinking, 'What is this?'"
Tonight Randy is performing at the Oscars again, as he's nominated for his 19th and 20th Oscars, for All-time Song for "I Tin't Let You Throw Yourself Away" from Toy Story four, and for composing Best Score for Marriage Story.
So in award of his cinematic accomplishments over these decades, we're happy to bring you this 2006 interview which focuses entirely on the movie work.
"I'yard so tired," he says with a weary smile in a distinctive voice which is ane-role New Orleans and one-function Angeleno, "and I'm and so tired of hearing myself say I'1000 and so tired."
Information technology's an burnout that stems not from the challenge of matching his previous level of brilliant and unparalleled songwriting – a problem which he's said for years has been his fundamental claiming in life. This nowadays fatigue comes from the rigorous level of work he's been devoting to completing the orchestral score for a new Pixar blithe feature, Cars, as well as a new song for the film, "Our Town", sung by his friend James Taylor. Composing a score, he says, is and so exceedingly arduous, that after completing one, he doesn't desire to do much of annihilation too brush his teeth.
Randy Newman is a truthful American treasure, i of the about gifted, inimitable and significant songwriters of modern times. As a melodist, at that place are few in his league, and equally a lyricist, he's set the bar with his character-driven "untrustworthy narrator," a novelistic device that other songwriters accept used but never mastered. When I asked Bob Dylan who he thought was a bully songwriter, the only living artist he pointed to was Randy. Remarkably, he's also become 1 of the world'southward foremost picture composers of the final two decades. In the history of the cinema, there has never been another film composer who is also an accomplished songwriter. Sure, there accept been many who have written the music for a few movie songs – always with other lyricists – as Chaplin wrote "Smiling" with John Turner and Geoffrey Parsons, David Raksin wrote "Laura" with Johnny Mercer and Henry Mancini wrote "Moon River" (also with Johnny Mercer). No other film composer has ever written both words and music and been able to achieve the brilliance Randy does. At the same fourth dimension, there'due south never been another songwriter who has become a consummate composer of moving-picture show music.
The songs he's written are legendary: "Canvas Away," "Political Scientific discipline," "Louisiana," "I Think It's Going to Pelting Today," "The World Isn't Off-white" so many others. Astoundingly, his many picture scores – full, sweeping, orchestral works – are too legendary: Avalon, Ragtime, Toy Story, Toy Story II, Monsters, Inc., Awakenings, Parenthood, The Paper, Run across The Fokkers, The Natural, Babe, Maverick, Run into The Parents and others. Like his Uncle Alfred Newman, a legendary motion-picture show composer who in his solar day was Hollywood'due south greatest and near prolific (although an insecure alcoholic, as Randy discusses in the following), besides equally his Uncles Emil and Lionel Newman, Randy has get a celebrated film composer himself.
We met on a brisk, sun bright day in W Hollywood. Dressed in a foam-colored suit, and with his hair at present all white, he resembled another distinguished American humorist – Marking Twain. From the lyrics of his songs, one might presume he's a misanthrope, merely he would exist wrong; he'due south really one of the warmest and funniest songwriters America has ever produced.
Though at that place are others who have effectively merged sense of humor, satire and irony into their songs, no one has washed it as finer every bit Newman. No 1 has led usa through songs as he has to shed light on the intolerance, ignorance and human frailty then prevalent in mod times. He's done information technology with music that echoes the essence of America, closer to ragtime than rock 'n' roll, with all the crude edges revealed.
But today nosotros are hither not to talk about his incomparable songwriting (almost which we accept previously spoken at length), but to conversation about his moving-picture show scoring. It'southward in that location that our word begins.
Yous write fully orchestral scores. Is that because you think an orchestra is the all-time medium for a picture show?
For the ones I've been given. At that place are some movies for which straight rock and roll would be best – a motion-picture show about immature people or modernistic life urban fashion stuff. I love an orchestra in what I've done; I've thought it was the right thing.
With animated films such equally Monsters, Inc. and Toy Story, your music brings a human warmth to movies that have no humans on the screen.
That's exactly what they wanted. And exactly what they were worried about. That's what yous always try to do. The characters in those pictures are adults. Toy Story is a child's picture show, just their emotions – yous take them seriously.
Exercise you commencement a score by writing melodic motifs for certain characters? In Monsters, Inc., for example, y'all have a cute motif whenever the lilliputian daughter Boo is onscreen?
Yes, simply she'southward belatedly in the motion picture. In Monsters nothing really good happens for a long fourth dimension. There isn't a consonant, straight-out chord for a long time. There is, for some, establishing stuff, merely so it'southward in danger for a long time. Merely I might be able to unify things more if I did do something like that. Sometimes I'll write themes that are related, but it isn't motific evolution. Sometimes it volition be a sound more than a melodic motif. Similar, the pizzicato on "Desperate Housewives" [past Steve Jablonsky] is a audio, irrespective of the notes they're playing. I've done that for pictures. If yous tin [add warmth], you've done what you're supposed to do. I don't want [the audience] listening to me instead of looking at the motion-picture show, always. But you desire to count for something. When they're running downwards the hallway, write something that runs them downwardly the hallway and increases the heartbeat of someone in the audience.
In many of your scores, certain melodies are prominent, but they don't take away from the epitome.
Yes, I don't think that takes abroad from the image. It's such a miniscule part of the whole – the music. They turn it down to a level where you can't hear it anyway. Like in Problems's Life, the dragonfly sounds like a B-29. I tin't hear what I did. And then yous might likewise write a melody. Sometimes you don't want it. But in nearly cases, like the scenes with Boo, she's got a little tune for her that isn't just aimless wandering.
That melodicism might be why people come to you.
Yeah, but I've been offered mostly comedies. I've been typecast. What I practise best, probably, would be a moving-picture show like Pride and Prejudice or Brokeback Mountain or Cinderella Man something where if they desire that kind of stuff, I can practise it. Only this other action-comedy stuff is goddamn difficult, these Pixar movies. Cars wasn't quite then hard, because they didn't take feet. My cousin Tommy [Newman] lucked out in that [Finding Nemo] was underwater. Monsters was really hard considering they're running around. And Problems'southward Life was like 3 times the size of the boilerplate score, considering they're really moving. And it doesn't look correct if you don't motility with them. There's a schoolhouse of thought that says, no, you don't have to [motion with them]. But in an animated film, y'all do. I don't recall at that place's any way around it. You lot don't ever have to move when a grasshopper is flying after an emmet, but it doesn't look right to me if you don't.
Do you always compose on piano?
No. I used to, before the synths were around. Only I'll write on a synth then put it down on newspaper. If it'south an action scene, zippo's gonna make enough racket for yous, usually, simply contumely. It just won't. There just isn't anything else also brass and percussion. Woodwinds are just not gonna do it. Then you lot play a brass figure [on synth]. I come up from a background and a family that would take hated that. Yous get used to any modality. I was always scared when I'd write an oboe solo, and I'd worry nearly a meg different things. With a synth, it isn't particularly accurate, especially in my versions. I'm not adept at using a synth, but I'll mind to it, and I'll still put information technology on paper then I can come across information technology.
Do you score while watching the images?
It varies. Sometimes you'll accept it cleaved downward in certain scenes. Information technology used to be that y'all couldn't look at it. You couldn't get the video; you'd simply piece of work from a cue sheet. Now you tin can expect at information technology and lock in the identify you're gonna outset, and the place you're gonna finish, and fiddle about. And so, yeah, yous look at it. There'south a lilliputian silent picture type stuff you'll do, where yous're playing along with it, simply yous don't practice the real writing when it'due south on.
Your Uncle Alfred wrote 300 movies scores.
He did. He worked all the fourth dimension, every 24-hour interval.
And you sometimes watched him work?
I did, since the time I was five-years-onetime.
Did yous watch him etch or conduct?
I would get visit him when he was working, and he'd ask me what I thought. I might have inherited some of my attitude well-nigh composing from my uncle – considering here was this guy who was the best picture composer there was, and he was asking me, when I was eight-years-old, "What do you recall of this?" And he looked worried. And if he was worried, maybe I thought, subconsciously – because I didn't desire this to happen to me – "Oh God, maybe I should exist worried, besides…perhaps I should endure, and live in a garret."
I've yet to be able to stride confidently into the room where I'thousand gonna be working. If it's going well, sometimes you know where you're going the next day. But then the next cue will come up, and you've got that empty page stuff. I don't fifty-fifty like to hear myself say it. But information technology's non unique to me. Johnny Williams feels the same way, accomplished as he is. James Newton Howard feels the same way when he starts a movie, every bit many as he's done, and as fast every bit he can do them. I was talking to him one time, and I said, "I really hope that I become hit by a car, or something, and go out of this. I don't want to die, or anything – I know that'south hard to believe." And he said, "No, I feel the same mode."
It'southward really ridiculous and laughable to await at things that way, and harmful to yourself, and harmful to anyone who has heard you, who aspires to be something like you, and thinks you're groovy, and wonders why you wouldn't have conviction in what you're doing after all you've washed in the by. Wouldn't you merely figure that the numbers would just favor y'all? What's the worst that could happen to y'all in in that location? Merely yous tin can't e'er change, though information technology's stupid and non-productive.
You once said that Alfred would drink every night.
He did drink every night – at v:00. I saw him in funny instances. There are other people who knew him differently.
Did Alfred offer whatever communication on scoring?
He said, "Never be afraid of melody." Merely present I retrieve you have to be wary of [melody] because [directors] might non want it. He said non to worry virtually things going besides dull musically, but I do. He said, "Don't piece of work at night." Only mainly, because he was loaded at night. I attempt not to [work at dark.]
You mentioned that James Newton Howard had only four weeks to write the score for One thousanding Kong. Is that uncommon?
No, information technology's not uncommon, but I wouldn't do it. I would never do it for anyone I didn't really love [Laughs]. Crusade information technology's just non enough time. The first matter that I try and get is equally much time every bit I can – to practice the job right. You're working all the time, anyway, but information technology's nice to get eight weeks. Information technology used to be more…x…or whatever you could get. Merely now it's more common that someone would get four weeks or three weeks.
Is eight weeks sufficient?
It's a sufficient amount of time to hope for if you've got twoscore minutes to write music for. I remember James must have had an hour and 45 minutes or more than to do. Information technology'south a three 60 minutes movie. He plays very well. And he tin can do synth stuff with real facility and write v to vii minutes a day. I can't write v minutes a day. I have written 2 minutes a twenty-four hour period.
Do you work on a motion picture score all twenty-four hour period long?
Yeah. I can't exercise that with songs. But motion-picture show scores, from forenoon till night, and usually seven days a week. Sometimes, if things are going really well, I'll take Sundays off. It usually gets downwards to a scramble, where you're writing specific scenes. You lot have to. You've got to practise a certain amount every day. Yous can't accept also many bad days. You tin't have two in a row, so you just don't. Possibly what y'all end upwardly with is not the best thing that you could accept thought of. Maybe you're never satisfied with it completely. But well-nigh of the time information technology turns out okay. It isn't like, "0h no, I'll throw that out."
Do you lot accept any say near where music goes in a film?
Yeah. Starts and stops – not like what composers used to have, where you lot'd decide yourself. The director often wasn't at that place when y'all spotted a pic. I don't recall [Milos] Forman was at that place when I did Ragtime. When Al used to do a picture show, sometimes the director didn't even show upward, and at present they come from stone and roll. They've listened to it all their lives, and they know what they like. The problem with that is that it's a very cabalistic business concern. I'm non saying it'south exalted. Information technology?s not like small particle physics, but it's odd. I once saw a scene from a Cary Grant movie without music. He was moving effectually, and there he was. And then they put the music in, and they would have music for little things that he did – not similar a cartoon, it didn't catch everything – and information technology made him look svelte. Information technology did something for him. You can give somebody more intelligence than they might be indicating they've got. And you can do lots of stuff for action.
Scorsese edits to the rhythms of songs. Do you try to friction match editing or rhythms in the motion picture?
Oh yes. Cuts. Not ostentatiously, but you attempt. It's movement – or the end of lines – the finish of dialogue. It's changed a scrap, in that a lot of times in activity movies, they'll just punch you down. Information technology used to be that yous'd get downwards and then people would say stuff, and yous'd come up again. Yeah, there're a hundred little things yous can do for a picture. That makes the picture meliorate. Information technology's all supposed to practice that. That's all that music is for in a motion-picture show. Pride and Prejudice, if information technology'southward supposed to make you tear up a trivial fleck, music can help exercise information technology. Or brand someone expect smoother than they are, or cooler than they are, or just as absurd as you lot possibly can. You can't make a bad movie look like a expert moving picture, only you tin can brand a good movie look like a actually classy, great movie.
Exercise you write to friction match a character, or are y'all thinking more of action and emotion?
All of information technology. Often information technology's motility rather than words – piddling things, footling stops, little starts. There'south no manner that a director'due south gonna know that kind of odd stuff. He shouldn't have to. Y'all rent someone who's sort of an expert, who's watching for that his whole life, and you kind of let him do information technology. You can tell what they want from what their temp track is. It'south their medium; it'south their film. If I write something that the manager doesn't like, I change it.
Does that happen a lot?
Not a lot, only it happens, yep. Stuff gets thrown out, moved around. The odds are that the music guy will be correct more than ofttimes than the director will be correct. But [the director] is right because it's their picture, so they know presumably exactly what they want it to be similar.
Practise you choose your projects based on scripts?
[Based on] who I'yard gonna exist working with. I think of what kind of musical opportunity it is…similar Seabiscuit, which looked like a big opportunity for music to really help something out. Certainly Avalon did. The things I've been doing lately, the Pixar things. Bug's Life needed things. Monsters too. And maybe I helped them all, but doing comedy – Meet The Parents, Come across The Fockers – maybe I made them $320 extra [Laughs]. I don't know what I did for them. The second thing I look for is who I'm gonna be working for, to encounter if I can deal with the guy. Lot of composers can't be that fussy about it, and if they're offered something, they take it. But I don't want to work for someone who?south gonna make me write things four different times and not know why.
I understand that you weren't happy with Seabiscuit, considering you weren't immune to do what y'all wanted.
No. I wasn't, but I'yard not sure what [Gary Ross, the manager] wanted. I did what I thought was right. He ended up changing a lot of what I did, and that hurt my feelings, and I think it hurt the picture. Horses are racing. You lot don't necessarily exercise the horse race, but you practise the doubtfulness about the horse race. He felt that everyone knew what was gonna happen, just information technology isn't like everyone knows the history of Seabiscuit. Fifty-fifty if they had, yous play fair with them. Yous don't requite away surprises with music. I hate it when that happens. When you know that, Oh Jesus Christ, this is gonna happen now.
Like when you all of a sudden hear spooky music.
Aye. You lot know, those are the kind of movies that go helped well-nigh by music. Think of some of that stuff without the spooky music. Music'south really important in films [laughs]; it'south amazing.
Is information technology hard for you to write a score?
Very difficult, because it'southward writing for an orchestra and beingness in the right place at the right time and doing the correct thing. It'due south very different from songwriting. You simply take to do it. There's no way out.
Practice you e'er use the same size orchestra?
No. Smaller ane for smaller films. If information technology'southward a big outdoor affair like Maverick, or an activity moving-picture show where you need a big brass section, then you need a lot of strings to soak it up. 100…108. Less on Meet The Fockers. Cars is pretty big. It too has electric guitars, acoustic guitars, mandolin, and some bluegrass stuff that I recorded separately.
And drums?
Yes. [Jim] Keltner.
Practise you compose a score from the beginning of a flick to the end?
No. I wish. You become different parts of it. They're finished with this, and so y'all get it. They're never finished, exactly. Information technology used to be that they'd finish a picture and then give information technology to yous. Audio and music was the last thing washed, but with an blithe moving-picture show, it comes in dissimilar parts. It makes it difficult somewhat considering you lot don't become to set anything. You can write something you tin can apply all right. Like in Cars, I did the final race meliorate than I did the first, in my opinion. Information technology'southward really footling, boring stuff like that that you end up thinking about. You realize that you're talking nigh taking enormously seriously an emmet and a grasshopper. It'south because the studio succeeds in doing it, so you have to figure out what music would look skilful with an evil grasshopper. I really kind of like writing music for movies. I similar it because I dear working with the orchestra. I love the sound an orchestra makes, and I love the guys and the women in the orchestra. I feel very comfortable doing it and it makes it worth it. Nigh.
Randy Newman's Oscar Nominations
2020 Nominee, Oscar for All-time Score for Marriage Story (2019).
2020 Nominee, Oscar for All-time Vocal, from Toy Story 4 (2019) for "I Tin can't Let Y'all Throw Yourself Away"
2011 Winner. Oscar for Best Song, from Toy Story three (2010), for "We Vest Together".
2010 Nominee, Oscar for Best Song, from The Princess and the Frog (2009), for "Well-nigh There."
2010 Nominee, Oscar for Best Song from The Princess and the Frog (2009), for "Down in New Orleans".
2007 Nominee, Oscar for Best Vocal, from Cars (2006) for "Our Boondocks".
2002 Winner, Oscar for All-time Music and Original Song, from Monsters, Inc. (2001), for "If I Didn't Have You."
2002 Nominee, Oscar for Best Music, Original Score for Monsters, Inc. (2001)
2001 Nominee, Oscar for Best Song, from See the Parents (2000), for "A Fool In Dearest".
2000 Nominee, Oscar for Best Song, from Toy Story 2 (1999), for "When She Loved Me."
1999 Nominee, Oscar for Best Song, from Babe: Pig in the City (1998) for "That'll Do".
1999 Nominee, Oscar for Best Music, Original Musical or Comedy Score for A Problems'due south Life (1998)
1999 Nominee, Best Music, Original Dramatic Score, Pleasantville (1998)
1997 Nominee, Oscar for Best Music, Original Musical or Comedy Score for James and the Behemothic Peach (1996)
1996 Nominee, Oscar for Best Song, from Toy Story (1995) for "You've Got a Friend in Me".
1996, All-time Music, Original Musical or Comedy Score for Toy Story (1995).
1995 Nominee, Oscar for Best Song, from The Newspaper (1994), for "Make Up Your Listen".
1991 Nominee for All-time Score, for Avalon (1990)
1990 Nominee, Oscar for All-time Vocal, from Parenthood (1989) for "I Love to See You Grin"
1985 Nominee for Best Score for The Natural (1984)
1982 Nominee, Oscar for Best Vocal, from Ragtime (1981) for "One More Hour"
1982 Nominee, Best Score, Ragtime (1981)
Source: https://americansongwriter.com/randy-newman-on-the-oscars/
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