So I decided to take a double dip with Mr. Newman if only because this was likely the first song I heard on the radio where I thought to myself "but that's the N-Word; you are not even supposed to say that word LET ALONE put it in Popular Contemporary" (I would have seen it in fiction prior to that, of course; Huck Finn springs to mind).
Well, I got a hold of the lyrics and sorted out about Lester Maddox and also this "cage" in the various Northern cities, and learned something about character in song, POV, and how a songwriter could, conceivably, use "racist" language in such a way that it was attacking racism (don't recall any of that running around on the ol' Amplitude Modulation). And, of course, both the North and South take hits here (no reason to be smug, Yankee).
From his 1973 album Good Old Boys; I probably heard it for the first time right before Short People came out. (Oh, and Marie from the previous post is on that same record.)
"College men from LSU/went in dumb, come out dumb, too..."
Rednecks.
IBL:mm
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If you take the records, Sail Away (my personal saddest song in the world, "Old Man", is on that one), Little Criminals, and Good Old Boys, there is no question that Randy Newman is one of the most serious, intelligent, and articulate songwriters the republic has ever heard. Even relatively hit and miss records like Trouble in Paradise are miss more because of the instrumentation then anything else.That instrumentation is always first rate but sometimes a little too edgy or grating for my taste. As I was saying, even on an album like that you find gems like "Real Emotional Girl", that makes you sort of gasp for air in the middle because when he wants you to feel it, you feel it. Here is his dark song about betrayal and the grotesque popular imagination: Davy the Fat Boy
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Hadn't heard this in years, George, thanks...
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