Song of the Day 2/14: Randy Newman, “Falling in Love”

If you wanted to commission a love song for a late-’80s rom-com, is Randy Newman the guy you’d turn to? As his girlfriend asks in the video, “What’s the matter? Phil Collins busy?” He probably was, so they hired Newman, and even got him to act in a promotional video for the song.

I’ve never seen the 1989 movie “Her Alibi” — given its 17% Rotten Tomatoes rating, not many other people did, either — but the Tom Selleck-Paulina Porizkova vehicle is apparently dreadful, and couldn’t have been helped much by Selleck’s limited acting ability and Porizkova’s total lack of same. As a result, virtually the only people who’ve heard Newman’s unexpectedly sweet romantic song are those who bought his “Land of Dreams” LP, which came out in late 1988.