Thursday music corner: Singer songwriter Randy Newman was born in Los Angeles in 1943. Three of his uncles were Hollywood film composers, and one (Alfred Newman) received 45 Oscar nominations and won nine times.
In his lengthy and much-garlanded career Newman has released 11 studio albums, three 'songbook' albums of re-recordings of his own songs, a 1995 musical version of Faust, and 28 soundtrack albums. He has won the Academy Award for Best Original Song twice - in 2001 for If I Didn't Have You (from Monsters, Inc.) and in 2010 for We Belong Together (from Toy Story 3), plus seven Grammy Awards. His biggest hit was the ironic novelty number Short People, which reached number 2 in the US charts in 1977.
A Few Words in Defense of Our Country, which displays Newman's traditional sardonic humour, was released as a single in 2007 and appeared on Newman's Mitchell Froom and Lenny Waronker-produced 2008 album Harps & Angels. The song was named the sixth best song of the 2000s decade by music critic Robert Christgau.
Randy Newman - A Few Words in Defense of Our Country (2007)
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