Top 73 Quotes About Randy Newman
#1. Randy Newman and I grew up together in Los Angeles. We are both products of the film studio era. Randy is one of the great songwriters of our time and one of the fun people to be with.
Leonard Slatkin
#2. Music-wise, I listen to everything. Leonard Cohen, Randy Newman - I guess I like a lot of '70s music.
Bret McKenzie
#4. Careless and not particularly biting, it was easier to shrug off than anything in the first book which depicted me as an inarticulate zombie confused by the irony of Randy Newman's I Love L.A.
Bret Easton Ellis
#5. The writers that I aspire to, like Joni Mitchell and Randy Newman, they'll tell you that the work gets harder, not easier. And they set that bar for us where we're always striving to do something better than the last time, whether it's the next song or just the next line.
Christopher Cross
#6. A lot of political music to me can be rather pedantic and corny, and when it's done right - like Bruce Springsteen or Jackson Browne or great satire from Randy Newman, there's nothing better.
Bonnie Raitt
#7. Randy Newman seemed like an even worse singer than me. I liked Ray Charles, Levi Stubbs, Jack Jones, Joe Tex, Wilson Pickett.
Donald Fagen
#8. But the truth is that L.A. was never entirely real anyway, as Steely Dan, Randy Newman, Warren Zevon, Larry David and Alan Ball all understood.
Barney Hoskyns
#9. You've got troubles, I've got 'em too. There isn't anything I wouldn't do for you. We'll stick together to see it through cause you've got a friend in me.
Randy Newman
#10. But if you're doing something, show up everyday, and something good might happen - it's not going to happen if you don't show up.
Randy Newman
#11. This one guy's wife is such a pretty brown thing, that I'm liable to give her a poke or two. Whaddaya think of that?
Randy Newman
#12. We'll have a kid or maybe we'll rent one. He's got to be straight, we don't want a bent one.
Randy Newman
#13. Asia's crowded and Europe's too old, Africa is far too hot and Canada's too cold. And South America stole our name, let's drop the big one.
Randy Newman
#14. I've written a song for Prince. I never showed it to Prince, but just to see if I could do it. At the time, when I sort of knew him, he was recording a song a day. I wondered if I could do that. So I wrote it.
Randy Newman
#15. I'd like to explain why you fine young men had to be blown apart to defend this mud hole.
Randy Newman
#16. They don't respect us, so let's surprise them, we'll drop the big one, pulverize them.
Randy Newman
#17. If you have a kid and you try irony out on them, they don't get it at 7, 8 years old. You can't really hide the Internet from kids. It worries me some particularly because I've done Disney and Pixar stuff.
Randy Newman
#18. I ain't saying that I'm better than you, but maybe I am.
Randy Newman
#19. I realized that, instead of moving people closer to a salvation decision, an answer can push them further away. Rather than engaging their minds or urging them to consider an alternative perspective, an answer can give them ammunition for future attacks against the gospel.
Randy Newman
#20. I sit here in this chair, I pour myself some whiskey, and watch my troubles vanish into the air.
Randy Newman
#21. I like the idea of taking a true classic written by a true genius and destroying it essentially! I like the idea of bringing it down to earth a bit - and even a bit lower than that.
Randy Newman
#22. I've often written about places that are totally different from anything I know. Sometimes they turn out better.
Randy Newman
#23. College men from L.S.U., went in dumb, come out dumb, too.
Randy Newman
#24. Stay away from drugs. They're not worth it. I've tried, but there's none of them that's worth it.
Randy Newman
#25. But I don't want to sing everything out of the side of my mouth, I want people to understand what I mean.
Randy Newman
#26. I like the performing. And interviews, even. And the stuff that's not sitting in a room by yourself with empty paper. But I never loved writing, to tell you the truth.
Randy Newman
#28. I like science - geography, meteorology, cosmology.
Randy Newman
#29. I always thought my best album was 'Trouble in Paradise.' I was the happiest with that one.
Randy Newman
#30. Still, it's clear that there are lots of people out there who are uncomfortable [about racism]. The Civil War was a long time ago but there are aspects of it that remain unsettled,
Randy Newman
#31. It's funny; people get so doctrinaire about music. It should be the last thing you don't have an open mind about.
Randy Newman
#32. It's very hard to get rich and famous at a young age and handle it well.
Randy Newman
#33. My music has a high irritation factor. I've always tried to say something. Eccentric lyrics about eccentric people. Often it was a joke. But I would plead guilty on the grounds that I prefer eccentricity to the bland.
Randy Newman
#34. It takes a whole lot of medicine for me to pretend I am somebody else.
Randy Newman
#35. I don't remember ever having writer's block. If I sit in there for four hours, I'll usually have something.
Randy Newman
#37. The radio is blastin', someone's knockin' at the door. I'm lookin' at my girlfriend, she's passed out on the floor.
Randy Newman
#38. If we'd had another carefree 70's, I'd have been dead. It was a little too carefree, you know? I don't know how carefree they were for me, I think I was worried then, I can't remember what about.
Randy Newman
#39. Who would want to break into [the music business]? It's like a bank that's already been robbed.
Randy Newman
#40. The best of my songs are more than just a joke. There's something else going on - a character, or it's not just a plain joke.
Randy Newman
#41. Don't forget to bring that little blonde haired girl along. You know the one, love to watch her jump up and down.
Randy Newman
#42. Mostly, I don't write overtly personal stuff.
Randy Newman
#43. I have owned and played a Steinway all my life. It's the best Beethoven piano. The best Chopin piano. And the best Ray Charles piano. I like it, too.
Randy Newman
#44. Some fools in the desert with nothing to do ... invented me, and they invented you. And other fools keep it all going and growing. Everybody, we're a figment of their imagination ...
Randy Newman
#45. I like to write my lyrics on clay tablets.
Randy Newman
#46. Most of my songs are about insensitivity of some kind.
Randy Newman
#47. He got drunk last night, kicked Mama down the stairs. But I'm alright, so I don't care.
Randy Newman
#48. We don't know our ass from a hole in the ground.
Randy Newman
#49. In England, in France, in no other country would a black man have a chance to get elected. There's no two ways about it. Our country [USA] has been better about dealing with immigration and people who are different from each other than any other country in the world, that I know of.
Randy Newman
#50. And the Lord said: I burn down your cities - how blind you must be. I take from you your children, and you say how blessed are we. You all must be crazy to put your faith in me. That's why I love mankind.
Randy Newman
#51. I am not overlooking any mail. I'm looking at all of it. I even wrote back to the Viagra people.
Randy Newman
#52. I once had dinner with Madonna and I wasn't nervous but within about a minute I found myself talking about underwear.
Randy Newman
#53. Sometimes what I'm writing is more important to me than the rest of my life. It's more important to me that I'm writing well than anything else.
Randy Newman
#54. The easiest thing I do is assignment songs. They tell me what they need me to write. I can do that fairly quickly. Writing for an orchestra is difficult. Writing songs [on your own] is most difficult of all. Though [writing for] the orchestra is close.
Randy Newman
#55. What I'm most pleased about is that there's no particular decline. The songs I wrote 40 years ago are no worse and no better - there's a consistency.
Randy Newman
#56. I think the tax cut is ridiculous but so am I.
Randy Newman
#57. People become who they are. Even Beethoven became Beethoven.
Randy Newman
#60. I've written about a lot of different things, but the whole idea of writing for another character is unusual for pop music. Most of the repertory is love songs, and most of mine isn't. I don't know if that's a mental defect, or shyness, or what.
Randy Newman
#61. If I were to die tomorrow, I think they'd say Newman 56, composer of the hit song, Short People. Jumped off a mountain today.
Randy Newman
#62. I'm pretty proud of my film music in general.
Randy Newman
#63. 'Rednecks' always made me nervous to play, but I'm glad I wrote it and I continue to play it. It's just that the language is so rough.
Randy Newman
#64. I seen her with the milkman, riding down the street. When you're through with my baby, milkman, send her home to me.
Randy Newman
#65. Thank God for the potholes on memory lane.
Randy Newman
#67. I started recording because I was always complaining about the records that I was getting of my songs. At least if I did them and messed them up, I wouldn't have anyone else to blame.
Randy Newman
#68. I've worked with a band, and it's nice to have someone to travel around with, but I didn't like it as well on stage.
Randy Newman
#70. I've always had a lot of respect from the people I respected.
Randy Newman
#71. I think in most cases, unless you're writing about a character who is garrulous, you say what you've got to say and then get out. Those little conjunctions, those little turnaround words help you do it. That's the way I like to write: I get rid of things rather than add them.
Randy Newman
#72. If getting on the radio was a major motivation, I'd be one of the worst writers of all time. I admire people who do it, and I think it's a nice way to work, but I try to do the best I can and write what I like. I don't worry about it.
Randy Newman
#73. Learn about the world, the way it works, any kind of science and anthropology, it's really an interesting place we live in. Evolution is a really fantastic idea, even more than the idea of God I think.
Randy Newman
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