Song Of The Day: April 5, 2018
I love this song. Love the atmosphere of impending doom . Notice how Newman doesn’t spell everything out for the listener. He gives you room to fill in the blanks. Song got lost on one of his lesser-known albums. Here it gets unlost:
Here’s an article that pulls quotes from various interviews to explain why this album is so overlooked.
http://ultimateclassicrock.com/randy-newman-born-again/
After reading that, I think that Randy had too much faith in his audience. Or, to put it mildly, too much faith in a large portion of his audience, who found his irony too subtle.
I think many listeners don’t understand that each song has a different, almost always unreliable, narrator, and that it’s the narrator’s point of view, not Newman’s, that they’re hearing. If people could miss the incredibly broad satire of “Short People” — and they did — they’re not going to pick up on the fact that “Political Science” is just as satiric.
Same holds true of ‘Rednecks’. As Newman points out, ‘they’ aren’t ‘free’ in the north any more than they are in the south.
Still enjoy that line, ‘College men from LSU, went in dumb, come out dumb too’, though.
Walkin’ round Atlanta in their alligator shoes.
Gettin’ drunk every weekend at the barbeque.
(I know a few cats who went to LSU so I like that bottom.)
Good selection today.
The album “Rednecks” also includes a song actually written by Huey Long, “Every Man a King.” I actually prefer the Kingfish’s version:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VzU0Cok3guQ
Huey Long also wrote the LSU Fight Song. Why? Because he was the Governor of Louisiana and he could.
Also because his co-writer, on both songs, was the musical director of the LSU marching band.