The overlooked song Brian Wilson and Bob Dylan recognised as a masterpiece: “The best”
There are plenty of musicians’ musicians, but there are very few in the rarified subcategory of being a musicians’ musicians’ musician. Randy Newman is perhaps at the peak of this internally revered tree.
To many music fans, he’s that froggy guy who sings the Pixar songs, but to Don Henley, he’s a “national treasure”, to Etta James, he has the most unique “point of view” in music, and to Bonnie Raitt, there’s “nothing better”. He’s a bloody good chap to boot.
While these plaudits might not have always resulted in attracting a popular crowd – Newman quips he has eternally plateaued at 200,000 unattractive fans globally throughout his career – they certainly go some way towards garnering him as a force within music who you’d be a fool to neglect.
But if you don’t know his work, which song should you pay most attention to? Well, Brian Wilson and Bob Dylan are perhaps the other two greatest songwriters in American history, and they agree that one particular anthem stands out as a gleaming masterpiece of perfect satire.
When Dylan spoke with Paul Zollo in 1991, he declared, “Now Randy might not go out on stage and knock you out, or knock your socks off. And he’s not going to get people thrilled in the front row. He ain’t gonna do that. But he’s gonna write a better song than most people who can do it. You know, he’s got that down to an art. Now Randy knows music. He knows music.”
He then singled out ‘Sail Away’ as the standard-bearer of his work: “It doesn’t get any better than that. It’s like a classically heroic anthem theme. He did it. There’s quite a few people who did it. Not that many people in Randy’s class.”
Elsewhere, he explained, “His style is deceiving. He’s so laid back that you kind of forget he’s saying important things. Randy’s sort of tied to a different era like I am.” That era is arguably the more developed and complex early days of pop when the likes of Hoagy Carmichael wrote in a holistically compositional manner.
These days, a song that appears on the radio might lyrically reflect heartbreak, but it will be effortlessly catchy and upbeat. It also won’t go through peaks and troughs of emotional oscillations. Instead, it’ll stick to its core melody. In essence, it will be 2D pleasantry.
However, Newman approaches a song differently. Of course, he’ll still want it to sound good, but he’ll also want it to reflect a story. If it’s lyrically about heartache, then it’ll have an air of hungover dissonance. It’ll have key changes that mimic the mood swings of separation. It’ll have an arc and a sense of journey.
You can see that outlook reflected in Wilson’s work, too. The classic ‘God Only Knows’ carries a similar holistic consideration. The words melody, instrumentation, and everything in between echo the heavenly sentiment of the title. So, it‘s unsurprising that the Beach Boy cites Newman as a major inspiration.
When celebrating Newman’s 1971 classic ‘Sail Away’, both the album and the track, and hailing its involvement amid his five favourites, Wilson went one step further and crowned it Newman’s “best” work. The praise might be lofty, but it is also perhaps unsurprising given how closely Wilson has actually studied all of the star’s output. “I love Randy,” he says, “his music means a lot to me.”
At a dark period in his life, the album served as salvation. “It served as inspiration,” he said in a 1976 Old Grey Whistle Test interview. “I played that album over and over.” Therein lies the true magic of the song, serving as a fine example of how Newman fights on a multitude of fronts as a songwriter. Ostensibly, a song about the slave trade should not be typical fodder for bringing a fellow performer out from under a bout of depression.
However, Newman brilliantly laughs at the world in a way that makes it bearable. That comedy provides a cushion, and from that comfortable standpoint, you can happily delve into the depths. When it comes to Newman, there is always meaning lingering beyond the last note.
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