Comedian and Filmmaker Mel Brooks

DATE January 1, 2004 ACCOUNT NUMBER N/A
TIME 12:00 Noon-1:00 PM AUDIENCE N/A
NETWORK NPR
PROGRAM Fresh Air

Interview: Randy Newman discusses his musical career
TERRY GROSS, host:

This is FRESH AIR. I'm Terry Gross. Happy new year.

Today we continue our holiday series Songs from Hollywood and Broadway. Randy
Newman has written music for many films, including "Toy Story," "A Bug's
Life," "The Natural" and "Ragtime." He received a total of 16 Oscar
nominations for best score and best song, and won an Academy Award for his
song "If I Didn't Have You" from "Monsters, Inc." He grew up near the
business. His uncles Lionel and Alfred Newman wrote many now-classic film
scores.

Randy Newman is also well-known for his performances of his own songs. Some
of his best-known songs that were not written for films include "Short
People," "Simon Smith and the Amazing Dancing Bear," "I Think It's Going to
Rain Today," "Sail Away," "Baltimore," "I Love LA" and "Lonely at the Top."
He recently released his first-ever album of solo studio recordings. It's the
first of a projected three-volume series called "The Randy Newman Songbook."

We're going to hear excerpts of two Randy Newman FRESH AIR appearances, but
first, let's hear a track from his new solo CD. This is "Political Science."

(Soundbite of "Political Science")

Mr. RANDY NEWMAN: (Singing) No one likes us, I don't know why. We may not be
perfect, but heaven knows we try. But all our friends, even our old friends,
put us down. Let's drop the big one, see what happens. We give them money,
but are they grateful? No, they're spiteful and they're hateful. They don't
respect us, so let's surprise them. We'll drop the big one and pulverize
them. Asia's crowded and Europe's too old. Africa's far too hot and Canada's
too cold. South America stole our name. Let's drop the big one; there'll be
no one left to blame us. We'll save Australia, don't want to hurt no
kangaroos. We'll build an all-American amusement park there. They've got
something, too. Boom goes London, and boom, Paris. There will be more room
for you and more room for me. In every city the whole world 'round will just
be another American town. Oh, how peaceful it will be, we'll set everybody
free. You wear a Japanese kimono, baby; the Italian shoes for me. They all
hate us anyhow, so let's drop the big one now. Let's drop the big one now.

GROSS: Randy Newman from his latest CD, "The Randy Newman Songbook." Here's
an excerpt of the 1992 interview and performance he recorded in our studio.

(Soundbite of 1992 interview)

GROSS: Have you developed a separate sound for accompanying yourself at the
piano than you'd use if you were just sitting at the piano alone to play? And
do you think of yourself as having a sound that you use when you're singing?

Mr. NEWMAN: A pianistic sound?

GROSS: Yeah. I mean, I think of you as having it, but I couldn't explain it.

Mr. NEWMAN: I don't think of it, but I probably just adjust to what I'm
doing, yeah. I have, you know, a style of playing, I think, that I can tell
it's me, if only because I can't keep time.

GROSS: Is there a certain kind of left hand that you think of as you or
something?

Mr. NEWMAN: Oh, you know, my son does this imitation of me...

GROSS: Yeah?

Mr. NEWMAN: ...you know, without hitting. He goes--you know, it's this sort
of...

(Soundbite of piano music)

Mr. NEWMAN: I'm very fond of shuffles. I have been all my life. It seems to
be my natural mode of expression. My mother was from New Orleans. I don't
know whether that has anything to do with it. But, you know, that...

(Soundbite of piano music)

Mr. NEWMAN: You know?

(Singing) Blue Monday, I hate blue Monday. Got to work like a slave all day.

I mean, that's the stuff I love. And people don't tend to like shuffles that
much, you know, and drummers hate them. But I've written more than I should
have, you know, and so maybe there's something to my left hand.

GROSS: So when you first got access to a piano and you were trying to do
things that you heard...

Mr. NEWMAN: As a kid?

GROSS: Yeah, as a kid. What...

Mr. NEWMAN: I never tried to do things I heard. I just played out a little,
you know...

(Soundbite of piano music)

Mr. NEWMAN: You know, the Thompson "From a Wigwam" book. "At the Party."

(Soundbite of piano music)

Mr. NEWMAN: And that was getting complicated there. But I never--you know,
there was music in my family, and I remember when I was about six, all of a
sudden there was like a piano in my room. You know, just in case I was
Mozart, I think, they wanted to have this thing looming--it was an upright,
Hoffman upright--looming over me. My dad was a doctor, but he loved show
business, you know. And before he went in the Army, he went on that Hollywood
caravan tour one of my uncles conducted, that thing during the war, and he was
a doctor on that. And I guess he never got over it. But, I mean, I think he
wanted me to be a musician, though he never admitted it. I mean, what was the
piano doing there, you know?

GROSS: Right.

Mr. NEWMAN: I didn't know what to do with it.

GROSS: So did you impress them with your musical skill early on?

Mr. NEWMAN: Yeah. I did with my ear. You know, they could play a record and
I would name what it was when I was very young. I don't know.

GROSS: So if you started off playing all these, you know, piano for beginner
type books...

Mr. NEWMAN: Sure.

GROSS: ...how did you start to learn rock 'n' roll? Did you just pick it up
from records? Could you...

Mr. NEWMAN: I think I did when I was--you know, started 15, 16. A friend of
mine suggested, you know, `Why don't you try and write some songs?' His
father was in the record business. So I did. And then a publisher signed me
up. But it isn't like--you'll hear stories. A lot of guys listen to records,
they just--it did something to them. It clicked some kind of switch in them
where they'd listen and copy the riffs on everything. I never did it. I was
pushed kicking and screaming the whole way, it seems like, into music in some
kind of way. Even when I was in college and people would be all--they'd say,
`Oh, did you hear Shostakovich's 11th Symphony?' Or I don't know what it was
then, about 11 maybe. And, you know, I hadn't heard it. But I was better
than everybody at composition classes and stuff like that; worse at, you know,
sight-singing and things like that. But I was like good at it. I had talent
for it.

GROSS: Were lessons forced on you?

Mr. NEWMAN: No, but I always felt I wasn't practicing enough, and I wasn't.
There's no doubt that I have some talent for it, and I probably have developed
some of it, too.

GROSS: Well, what...

Mr. NEWMAN: I know that sounds odd, but...

GROSS: What was the first kind of stuff you started writing at the piano for
yourself?

Mr. NEWMAN: The first thing I wrote was like a summer song. I was 16, 17.

(Soundbite of piano music)

Mr. NEWMAN: (Singing) They tell me it's summer--it went--but I know it's a
lie, 'cause summer's for laughing; all I do is cry.

Jeez, I don't know whose key this was. But anyway, it was recorded by The
Fleetwoods.

(Soundbite of piano music)

Mr. NEWMAN: (Singing) They tell me it's summer, but I know it's a lie, 'cause
summer's for laughing; all I do is cry.

And things like that, you know, not really bad, but just vapid.

GROSS: Let me ask you to do another song.

Mr. NEWMAN: Absolutely.

GROSS: Is there one you'd particularly like to do, or "Dixie Flyer" or
"Emotional Girl" or...

Mr. NEWMAN: I'll do "Emotional Girl."

(Soundbite of "Real Emotional Girl")

Mr. NEWMAN: (Singing) She's a real emotional girl. She wears her heart on
her sleeve. Every little thing you tell her, she'll believe. She really
will. She even cries in her sleep. I've heard her, many times before. I
never had a girl who loved me half as much as this girl loves me. It's real
emotional. Eighteen years she lived at home, she was Daddy's little girl.
Daddy helped her move out on her own. She met a boy, he broke her heart. Now
she lives alone. She's very, very careful, yes, she is. She's a real
emotional girl. She lives down deep inside herself. She turns on easy like a
hurricane. You would not believe her, gotta hold on tight to her. She's a
real emotional girl.

GROSS: Is that song about somebody? I mean, somebody you know?

Mr. NEWMAN: It's about a bad guy, I think. You know, I mean, it sort of
slips by as a love song, but he shouldn't be telling anyone what he knows
about this girl, in my opinion. But I let it go. A beautiful love song. I
don't think so. I think he shouldn't say, you know, `She turns on easy like a
hurricane,' to anyone else. `I've seen her cry in her sleep.' What business
is that of anybody's? I guess I just can't help myself. I sometimes play the
thing from "Parenthood"...

(Soundbite of piano music)

Mr. NEWMAN: ...you know, in the show I do, and it's so atypical of my work.
It's so jolly and--but my doing it, it sounds evil, you know, even, somehow.

GROSS: Well, the song from "Parenthood," "I Love to See You Smile"...

Mr. NEWMAN: Yeah.

GROSS: Wasn't that used for a commercial?

Mr. NEWMAN: Yeah, Colgate.

GROSS: A camera or something? Colgate?

Mr. NEWMAN: For toothpaste.

GROSS: Oh, OK. Yeah. See, that...

Mr. NEWMAN: I agonized over that for about half a minute.

GROSS: Well--(laughs).

Mr. NEWMAN: I didn't know what to do.

GROSS: It's almost as if it's easier for you to write songs in the character
of people who you really don't like.

Mr. NEWMAN: Oh, I've got some sympathy for every one of them. But basically
that's sort of true. I wouldn't say I dislike, but I'm more interested in
that. No one else does it. I wrote love songs, you know, when I was a kid,
but I don't write any now.

GROSS: And why not?

Mr. NEWMAN: There's enough of them, and maybe they're harder. You know,
maybe I'm shy. I don't know. I'd write one for another person, but I
wouldn't necessarily be interested in it for me. It depends. A song like
"Marie," that's in character--it's an odd kind of probably some sort of
psychiatric problem.

GROSS: Yeah, right. I was going to suggest that.

Mr. NEWMAN: No, but I figure--I've always said that, you know, if a short
story writer or a novelist or a guy in a movie has the latitude not to be me,
well, I mean, why can't I be? And I want to say something else.

GROSS: Can I ask you to do a chorus of "Lonely at the Top"?

Mr. NEWMAN: Sure.

GROSS: I just think that's one of your really kind of fun songs.

(Soundbite of piano music)

Mr. NEWMAN: (Singing) I've been around the world, had my pick of any girl.
You'd think I'd be happy, but I'm not. Everybody knows my name, but it's just
a crazy game. Oh, it's lonely at the top.

You know what I was noticing, since you're sitting right here and I'm
singing...

GROSS: Yeah?

Mr. NEWMAN: ...how hard it must have been, unless you're an actor in
movies--you know, I was trying to look at you and sing. It's murder. It
would be murder to listen, too, you know.

(Soundbite of piano music)

Mr. NEWMAN: (Singing) I love you, I'll always love you.

Jesus Christ.

GROSS: It was really embarrassing to..

Mr. NEWMAN: I couldn't do it.

GROSS: Yeah.

Mr. NEWMAN: Yeah, you don't know what to do, I don't know what to do.

GROSS: Exactly. Exactly. So are you averting your eyes? Well...

Mr. NEWMAN: Oh, very much so. I'm afraid. As a matter of fact, I'm glad I
can't see audiences. You know, when you do TV, they're lit up. So, you know,
you're playing on "Letterman" or "Saturday Night Live" and you can see the
people. And, you know, you're talking to each other or--I'm afraid to look.

GROSS: Now I remember from the last interview we did that you wrote that for
Frank Sinatra, and...

Mr. NEWMAN: Yeah, I did. I thought it really would have been kind of hip if
he did that.

GROSS: Yeah. I mean...

Mr. NEWMAN: And I played it for Streisand, but she said, well, people would
believe it, you know, if she sung that. Maybe she's right.

GROSS: Do people believe it about you? Do they think that you're singing it
about your own experience?

Mr. NEWMAN: It depends. Some towns. You know, I used to play it in
Philadelphia, strangely enough, where we are, and they wouldn't laugh. They'd
think I was at the top. Even if there were 12 people in the audience, you
know, at a club.

GROSS: Randy Newman, recorded in our studio in 1992. We'll hear an excerpt
of his 1998 interview after a break.

This is FRESH AIR.

(Soundbite of music)

GROSS: As part of our series Songs from Hollywood and Broadway, we're
listening back to interviews with Randy Newman, who has received 16 Oscar
nominations for his scores and songs. His latest CD is called "The Randy
Newman Songbook." In 1998, he had a box set called "Guilty: 30 Years of
Randy Newman," which collected many of his best-known recordings, along with
demos and other previously unreleased tracks, and his scores from such films
as "Ragtime," "The Natural," "Parenthood" and "Toy Story." We're going to
hear an excerpt of the interview we recorded when it was released.

Newman made his first record when he was 18, but it went nowhere. He wasn't
planning on having a career as a singer, but he was hoping to make it as a
songwriter. He was writing songs for a music publishing company.

(Soundbite of 1998 interview)

GROSS: What was your image of a songwriter back then? This was a kind of
transitional period in the early '60s; you know, you're past Tin Pan Alley,
you're kind of in the end of the Leiber and Stoller era, and right at the kind
of dawn of the period where bands are going to be writing their own songs.

Mr. NEWMAN: The image that I cherish and love was like--I remember Donald
O'Connor and Sid Fields. I think they used to play this song where they'd be,
`Listen to this. Listen to this.' Jimmy Cagney had a movie like that once,
except he was a writer--I can't think of what it was--with Pat O'Brien. I
loved the idea of these two guys getting all excited about some, you know,
Korean War song or something. The image I had was that ancient motion picture
image of Tin Pan Alley and two guys hammering it out. And it was also of
Carole King and Gerry Goffin and Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil and the people
who were very successful contemporaneously with my attempts to write songs for
people.

GROSS: I want to get to another track from the third CD on your four-CD box
set. And this is the CD of demos and other mostly previously unreleased
material. This is a song called "Love is Blind," which is, you know--just as
the first song that we heard, "Golden Gridiron Boy," is very out of character
for you, this kind of cheerful--well, not cheerful, but...

Mr. NEWMAN: No, this isn't cheerful, but...

GROSS: ...just an upbeat football song.

Mr. NEWMAN: ...it's a generic lyric.

GROSS: Yeah. Exactly.

Mr. NEWMAN: You know, that's what it is.

GROSS: Right. You say in the notes that you wrote it when you were 18.

Mr. NEWMAN: Yeah.

GROSS: So you were 18 and already writing, `Love is bitter, love is hopeless,
love is blind.' It leads me to think that you already had a sense of yourself
as writing more dark and cynical songs than your average songwriter.

Mr. NEWMAN: Well, there are some pretty lugubrious love songs, you know what
I mean? A lot of them are pretty bleak--you know, "He Stopped Loving Her
Today" and a lot of country things. But I was a pretty down cat, I guess. I
don't know.

GROSS: Well, let's hear this song, "Love is Blind," written in about 1962.
The recording we'll hear is 1968. And this is from Randy Newman's box set
"Guilty: 30 Years of Randy Newman."

(Soundbite of "Love is Blind")

Mr. NEWMAN: (Singing) They say that love's a sweet thing, and for lovers the
sun will always shine. But in spite of what they say, I think of love this
way: Love is bitter, love is hopeless, love is blind. I learned the hard and
lonely ways that love can't last through the year. I've spent a thousand
empty yesterdays hiding behind a veil of tears. Now poets may write about
love, and wise men may sing its praise. But I'll always remember as I go
through the empty days that love is bitter, love is hopeless and love is
blind.

Oh, my...

GROSS: "Love is Blind," one of the demos on Randy Newman's box set "Guilty."

What were you saying there?

Mr. NEWMAN: I was laughing at the ending. You know, it was just sort of
aimless wandering. You know, in the motion picture--movie business, we call
it grazing. And I was just like waiting to end it. I know where it should
have gone, but I didn't go there. It made me laugh.

GROSS: Well, that was a demo. Did you ever record it other than that for
yourself?

Mr. NEWMAN: No, I never thought enough of it.

GROSS: Well, I like it a lot. Why don't you like it?

Mr. NEWMAN: Yeah, I do, too.

GROSS: OK.

Mr. NEWMAN: Oh, `veil of tears,' and things like that.

GROSS: Oh, sure.

Mr. NEWMAN: I mean--yeah, sure, but, I mean, I grew to not be able to stand
that stuff coming from myself. I mean, I'll listen to records and love them
and they'll have lyrics like that in them, but I can't do it. You know, it's
like if you know better, don't do it.

GROSS: I just figured I could put kind of like little quotes around the "veil
of tears" and say, `Oh, that's a little tip of the hat to the genre.'

Mr. NEWMAN: Well, that's being too kind. I mean, it's just--you know, none
of it was heartfelt in that, you know, I don't think I'd been in love with
anybody. You know, I certainly didn't have all these sophisticated--you know,
it's bitter and blind at 18, you know. So, I mean, I hope not. I just didn't
think of recording--I like it, too. I like everywhere it goes. The harmonic,
you know, structure of it--I mean, it sounds like me. It's what I do today.

GROSS: Randy Newman recorded in 1998 after the release of his box set
"Guilty: 30 Years of Randy Newman." We'll hear more of that interview in the
second half of the show.

I'm Terry Gross, and this is FRESH AIR.

(Soundbite of "Short People")

Mr. NEWMAN: (Singing) Short people go no reason, short people got no reason,
short people got no reason to live...

(Announcements)

GROSS: Nathan Lane and Matthew Broderick just returned to Broadway and their
starring roles in the Mel Brooks musical "The Producers." Coming up, we hear
from Mel Brooks. Also, more with Randy Newman.

(Soundbite of music)

GROSS: This is FRESH AIR. I'm Terry Gross.

Let's get back to our 1998 interview with composer, singer and pianist Randy
Newman. His latest CD, "The Randy Newman Songbook," features solo versions of
some of his best-known songs, including "Sail Away," "It's Lonely at the Top,"
"Political Science" and "I Think It's Going to Rain Today." He's also written
music for such movies as "Seabiscuit," "Toy Story," "A Bug's Life,"
"Parenthood," "The Natural" and "Ragtime." I spoke with him after the release
of his box set, "Guilty: 30 Years of Randy Newman," which includes some of
his best-known recordings, along with film scores, demos and other previously
unreleased tracks. I asked him about his song "Maybe I'm Doing It Wrong," a
waltz about sex not measuring up to what it's supposed to be.

So many pop songs are supposed to be sung in the voice of the seducer, who's
bragging about how good a lover he is.

Mr. NEWMAN: Yeah.

GROSS: Did you intend this to subvert that kind of song?

Mr. NEWMAN: Yeah. And it's really a great idea, because it's a widespread
thing. You know, people don't necessarily talk about it. I mean, you have no
idea from knowing a person--my experience is, at least--what they're like
sexually or--you can't even guess at that. It's that and money. You know,
you can try and borrow $5 from someone you've known for 30 years and they
won't give it to you. And it's a complete unknown. And I really like--this
song is short, but I always thought it was a great idea for a song, and, you
know, like, I wished I'd done more, but I couldn't think what more to do.

GROSS: Well, let's hear it. This is "Maybe I'm Doing It Wrong."

(Soundbite of "Maybe I'm Doing It Wrong")

Mr. NEWMAN: (Singing) Maybe I'm doing it wrong. Maybe I'm doing it wrong.
It just don't move me the way that it should. Maybe I'm doing it wrong.
There ain't no book you can read. There ain't nobody to tell you. But I
don't think I'm gettin' what everyone's gettin'. Maybe I'm doing it wrong.
Sometimes I throw off a good one. Least I think it is; no, I know it is. I
shouldn't be thinkin' at all. I shouldn't be thinkin' at all. Maybe I'm
doing it wrong. Maybe I'm doing it wrong. It just don't move me the way that
it should. Maybe I'm doing it wrong.

(Soundbite of applause)

GROSS: Why did you write that song as a waltz?

Mr. NEWMAN: I don't know. It just came out that way. Almost every song I've
written has had words and music sort of come at the same time, but--no.
Usually the music comes a little first, so I probably was just clumping along
like that, and `Maybe I'm'--it just--I didn't do it for any artistic reason,
though I'd be happy to take credit for any sort of Viennese reason that you'd
like to give me.

GROSS: Well, thanks for the invitation. I have a reason I'd like to give
you.

Mr. NEWMAN: Yeah.

GROSS: This song is about kind of frustration in sexuality, but the waltz has
such a nice lilt, such an easy lilt, that it's a nice contrast.

Mr. NEWMAN: (Hums) It does. You know, it--mm, mm, bom, bomp--yeah, it's sort
of in one. Yeah. It could be--it might be--also, I loved a record called "If
You Got to Make a Fool of Somebody"--I don't know which came first, but, I
mean, maybe I wanted to write something like that. See, it's an--this is an
instance I hear--listen to the audience where sometimes--Harry Nilsson once
told me--I asked him, you know, it was a constant thing with him, not
performing, why he didn't perform. One time--it was mainly, I think, because
he was frightened of it. I think, but I don't know. But he said once it was
because he was worried it would hurt his work, that the audience reaction
would, like, throw him off 'cause he wouldn't know it was good stuff. And
it's a very small thing that you can isolate it as a writer. I mean, the
audience will react to some things, like `Sometimes I'll throw off a good
one.' Like I probably could have done better there, you know, but they
laughed at it. I knew they liked it. So I left it alone.

GROSS: Now could you ever imagine writing or singing a song in the opposite
persona, the song in the voice of the great seducer, the great lover: `Baby,
I'm so good'?

Mr. NEWMAN: Only as a joke. I mean, why talk if that's the case? Only as a
joke I've probably done that; I mean, almost certainly I've done it in some of
my songs, you know, bragging. I can't think of one now, but it's--"Emotional
Girl" to some slight, strange degree. But I know there's better--"You Can
Leave Your Hat On"; that guy's sort of lame, you know. And yet they take it
and treat it as straight, you know, sex.

GROSS: I'm glad you mentioned "You Can Leave Your Hat On." That song was
used in...

Mr. NEWMAN: Yeah.

GROSS: What's the movie called? I'm just blanking out on the title. "Full
Monty."

Mr. NEWMAN: "Full Monty"...

GROSS: Yeah.

Mr. NEWMAN: ...and "9 1/2 Weeks." The...

GROSS: Well, "Full Monty" was such a big art-house hit. Did that revive the
song and bring you in surprising royalties?

Mr. NEWMAN: Oh, the other thing was even a bigger hit.

GROSS: Oh.

Mr. NEWMAN: "9 1/2 Weeks" was such a big hit in Europe that it was a hit
almost worldwide. So I guess that it was revived both times, yeah.

GROSS: So you never know which old songs are going to come back at you.

Mr. NEWMAN: Yeah. And I did a TV show with Joe Cocker, and I did the
thing--let's see, what did I do it in? Yeah, key of E. And I said, `What key
do you do it in?' I figured maybe he'd do it higher; I figured G, maybe a
minor third. And he said no, he did it in C. And I said, `C?' And up there,
I could sing it--I could have sung it in C and that band could have really
rocked, you know, and you could have heard it. And he had a hit with it up
there, where I was mumbling around, `Baby, take off your coat'--you know, I
was trying to get the character right. I just didn't have any sense of--I
mean, I wish I'd done it in C, to tell you the truth.

GROSS: So the song sounded different when he did it.

Mr. NEWMAN: Oh, yeah. I mean, being a sixth higher made it--you know, took
you way up there and you really belted it out, whereas mine was more
furtive--`furtivo.'

GROSS: Right. Yours was more the heavy breather.

Mr. NEWMAN: Yeah, but in--sort of harmless, you know? I think some women's
group were offended, but I meant the guy to be kind of laughed at, though as I
get older, I take it more seriously, you know?

GROSS: You're listening to a 1998 interview with Randy Newman. Let's hear
the version of "You Can Leave Your Hat On" from his new solo CD, "The Randy
Newman Songbook."

(Soundbite of "You Can Leave Your Hat On")

Mr. NEWMAN: (Singing) Baby, take off your coat, real slow. Baby, take off
your shoe. I'll take your shoes. Baby, take off your dress, yes, yes, yes.
You can leave your hat on. You can leave your hat on. You can leave your hat
on.

GROSS: Randy Newman. We'll hear more from our 1998 interview with Newman
after a break. This is FRESH AIR.

(Soundbite of music)

GROSS: Let's get back to our 1998 interview with Randy Newman, recorded after
the release of his box set, "Guilty: 30 Years of Randy Newman."

I want to get to another one of the songs on here that I believe was never
released, and this is a song called "Let Me Go." And you wrote it for a
film called "The Pursuit of Happiness"...

Mr. NEWMAN: Yeah.

GROSS: ...which I looked up in Leonard Maltin's "Guide to Films," and he
describes it as `a sympathetic tale of a young man sent to jail more for his
attitude in court than for any particular offense.' I don't know if that
jives. I've never seen the movie.

Mr. NEWMAN: I don't remember court. I remember the picture--Michael Sarrazin
and Barbara Hershey. It was an assignment--it was an expression--the song was
attempting to be expression of not caring. He wasn't like a committed sort of
radical type. You know, they made all those movies in the '70s; I mean, like
a plethora of bad pictures about youth. This wasn't a bad picture, but what
the director wanted, as I recall, was something that showed that nothing
mattered to this kid.

GROSS: Do you want to say anything else about writing it before we hear it?

Mr. NEWMAN: No, but I've always felt that I've done well when I had
assignments like that. He wasn't even that specific, but that's what I
thought it needed. I like that kind of thing, you know, where I've had
assignments for, you know, like "Parenthood" or the Disney pictures. It makes
songwriting like five times easier.

GROSS: OK. Let's...

Mr. NEWMAN: And you lower your standards quite a bit, too.

GROSS: That's important.

Mr. NEWMAN: Yeah, very.

GROSS: Let's hear "Let Me Go," written and performed by Randy Newman,
recorded in 1970.

(Soundbite of "Let Me Go")

Mr. NEWMAN: (Singing) Maybe I'll write you a letter. Maybe I'll give you a
call. Maybe I'll drop you a line when I'm feeling down. Maybe I won't, after
all. Somewhere a river is flowing, rolling on here to the sea. Somewhere a
flower is growing. That don't mean anything to me. Let me go, let me go, let
me go. Don't give me the answer, 'cause I don't want to know. Just let my
heart go on beating a little bit longer. I'm so young. I'm so young.

GROSS: Now, Randy Newman, you describe that song as being, you know, written
about someone to show how little he cares, but there's so much emotion in the
way that you sing `I'm so young.'

Mr. NEWMAN: Yeah. I meant it to be like an excuse; `Leave me alone,' you
know; `Oh, I'm so young.' But it's a tough medium to do that kind of thing--I
mean, for irony to come across. But yeah, there's--see, the thing I figure,
anyone who would whine, `Oh, don't put anything on me. I'm so young. I'm so
young'--now only a jerk would say that, I think. So--and the guy knows it,
you know? And that's probably me putting more into it than can be conceivably
got, but that's what I meant, you know, that, `You know, I'm so young,' you
know? People would use their youth as something to beat you with, you
know--or I would use it as something to beat with--it was like in the '70s in
the record business, there were a bunch of people with English accents all of
a sudden, and they could have had an IQ of 48, but the English accent would
somehow intimidate everyone and they rose within the hierarchy of the record
companies. It's just not what I meant.

GROSS: My guest is Randy Newman. Let's hear an excerpt of the score for the
film "Ragtime."

(Soundbite of music from "Ragtime")

GROSS: You come from a film music extended family. Your uncles were Lionel
and Alfred Newman, and Alfred...

Mr. NEWMAN: And Emil Newman, the forgotten Newman.

GROSS: And Alfred Newman was head of music for Twentieth Century Fox; film
scores include "Grapes of Wrath," "Hunchback of Notre Dame," "Captain from
Castile," "All About Eve," "Wuthering Heights." Did your uncles, being in
the film music business, help you think about music as being part of
storytelling?

Mr. NEWMAN: Maybe. The first album sounded like I was trying very much to
get things in the right place, to put people--the song "Cowboy," you know,
I didn't use the piano on it 'cause it was an indoor instrument. It used to
be in movies you'd pay attention to stuff like that, where you'd want to
hear--I didn't like it when I heard a piano outside, somehow. It took me
inside. But yeah. I mean, I think it probably did. I've never thought of it
before, but yeah.

GROSS: Did having them in the family prevent you from being willing to sell
your soul in order to make it in Hollywood?

Mr. NEWMAN: I never had a romantic view of Hollywood, and I never
had--because, you know, the actors weren't around by the time they were
working on the picture. And I would see that--you know, I'd hear them talk
about this director or that actor, actress, and there was never any glamour to
it for me, particularly. I don't know. Maybe you sell your soul a little
when you do a movie anyway, movie music. But I don't feel that way. I think
I've done some of my best work writing stuff that I never would have gotten to
had I not been--had not the movie dictated that I write something like that,
like "The Natural." I mean, I'm not going to write heroic music like that, I
don't think, or at least if I did, it would be very dissonant, I think. And
I'm glad I got to it.

GROSS: Randy Newman, thank you very much for talking with us.

Mr. NEWMAN: A great pleasure, as always.

GROSS: Randy Newman, recorded in 1998 after the release of his box set,
"Guilty: 30 Years of Randy Newman." His latest CD, "The Randy Newman
Songbook," features solo versions of some of his best-known songs.

Coming up, Mel Brooks. This is FRESH AIR.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Interview: Mel Brooks discusses his service in World War II and
his show "The Producers"
TERRY GROSS, host:

Nathan Lane and Matthew Broderick ended 2003 by returning to Broadway in their
starring roles in "The Producers." They're doing a limited run through April
14th. "The Producers" won 12 Tonys in 2001, including best musical, best book
of a musical, best original score and best actor. The book, the music and
lyrics were written by Mel Brooks. He adapted the show from his first feature
film, "The Producers," which he wrote and directed. The story is about two
producers with a convoluted scheme to make money by putting on the worst show
ever written. The show they came up with is the musical "Springtime for
Hitler."

(Soundbite of "The Producers")

Mr. NATHAN LANE: (Singing) And now it's springtime for Hitler and Germany.
Deutschland is happy and gay. We are marching to a faster pace. Look out,
here comes the master race. Springtime for Hitler...

GROSS: I spoke with Mel Brooks about "The Producers" in 2001. "Springtime
for Hitler" is just one of the satirical songs about the fuhrer in "The
Producers." Brooks told me he fought against the Germans in World War II,
although he didn't see much combat.

Mr. MEL BROOKS (Author, Composer, Lyricist): I was sent over in '45. The war
was nearly over. We arrived sometime at the end of January. The Battle of
the Bulge had already been fought, and I came in on a new wave, moving across
the Rhine at Remagen, the Remagen Bridgehead. And then we moved into Germany
and we moved, actually, into Alsace-Lorraine. And I finally ended up in
Frankfurt, up in Manns. We had some skirmishes out--the Germans were in
flight. I mean, we were fired on by a lot of kids and old men who were left
in the villages. They were called werewolves, snipers. 'Cause I was a radio
operator. And we'd figure out our position and tell the artillery, you know,
to knock out a German post somewhere. And the minute we broadcast, we had to
high-tail it out of there, because 10 seconds later, the road would be
straddled with 88 shells. I mean, they would zero in, and they were amazingly
accurate.

GROSS: Now did you and your fellow soldiers tell Hitler jokes?

Mr. BROOKS: Oh, yeah. Once--actually, the Germans at one point broadcast to
us, foolishly, that we would be treated well according to the Geneva
Convention if we laid down our arms, because they did have--they thought they
had us semisurrounded, but they didn't. And they broadcast with these big
bullhorns: `(Imitating German) the Geneva Convention (imitating German).' I
don't know what they hell they were saying, but they were yelling in German.
And so I picked up our bullhorns, and I sang, `Toot-toot-tootsie, goodbye.
Don't cry, tootsie, don't cry.' I did this whole Jolson thing. And believe
it or not, at the end of it I thought I heard German applause, you know, from
the other side. I thought that...

GROSS: Did you really do that?

Mr. BROOKS: Yeah, I really did. I figured, what the hell? The bullhorn was
there, and I was a good singer.

GROSS: And...

Mr. BROOKS: I thought I'd give them a--you know?

GROSS: No one shot at you during that?

Mr. BROOKS: Well, I mean, we were far apart, you know?

GROSS: Right. Right.

Mr. BROOKS: You know?

GROSS: Let me play a song that you wrote--well, this is in both the movie and
the show, "The Producers," and this is called "Haben Sie Gehort Das Deutsche
Band?" And...

Mr. BROOKS: This is "Haben Sie Gehort Das Deutsche Band?," which means in
English, `Have you ever heard a German band?'--was in the movie, "The
Producers." It was only about eight bars, and I took it, put it into "The
Producers" on Broadway and made a whole 32-bar song out of it.

GROSS: OK. Let me just explain the context here for our listeners who don't
know the story. This is during the auditions to find the worst actor in the
world to play Hitler in the worst play ever written, and one guy is
auditioning as Hitler and the playwright, Franz Liebkind, thinks that this guy
isn't investing enough masculinity in his depiction of Hitler; has to be more
masculine. So the playwright steps in and does it himself to demonstrate how
it should be done. So here's Brad Oscar as the playwright Franz Liebkind,
singing.

(Soundbite of "Haben Sie Gehort Das Deutsche Band?")

Mr. BRAD OSCAR: (Singing) Haben sie gehort das Deutsche Band, mit a bang,
mit a boom, mit a bing-bang, bing-bang boom? Ah, haben sie gehort das
Deutsche Band, mit a bing, mit a boom, mit a bing-bang, bing-bang boom?
Russian folksongs und French ooh-la-la can't compare with a German
oom-pah-pah! Ve're saying, haben sie gehort das Deutsche Band, mit a zetz,
mit a zap, mit a zing? Polish polkas, now they're stupid and they're rotten.
It don't mean a thing if it ain't got that
schweigen-reigen-schone-schutzen-schmutzen sauerbraten!

Key change! Ve're saying, haben sie gehort das Deutsche Band, mit a zetz, mit
a zap, mit a zing? It's ze only kind of musik zat ve huns und our honeys love
to sing!

Mr. LANE: That's our Hitler!

GROSS: Mel Brooks, one of the rules that producer Max Bialystock tells his
protege Leo Bloom is that--he says there's two cardinal rules of producing.

Mr. BROOKS: His rule--`There are two cardinal rules, Bloom,' because Bloom
starts out, `How much do we put up?' And Nathan slips and falls and gets up
and says, `Bloom, there are two rules when producing a play on Broadway. One:
Never put your own money in a show.' And then Bloom says, `And what's two?'
And Nathan screams, `Never put your own money in a show!'

GROSS: After writing those two rules yourself, you know, about never putting
your own money into a show, you're one of the producers of "The Producers,"
which I suppose means you put your money into the show.

Mr. BROOKS: Actually, no. I'm an honorary producer, because I became--I
traded my underlying rights for producership. And my underlying rights were
worth as much financially as anybody, any of the producers. So that's how I
become a producer. But I never put a penny into the show. And now, you know,
who knew? I wish I would have put a million bucks into it. I mean, I would
have gone to a bank and borrowed it and I would have been rich today. But I'm
OK, you know? Who's complaining?

GROSS: Mel Brooks, recorded in 2001. Nathan Lane and Matthew Broderick have
returned to "The Producers" for a limited run through April 14th. Our series
Songs from Hollywood and Broadway concludes tomorrow.

(Soundbite of "The Producers")

Mr. MATTHEW BRODERICK: (Singing) Gotta sing, sing.

Mr. LANE: (Singing) Gotta sing, sing.

OK, boys. Break's over. Let's take it from the top.

Unidentified Man #1: This is good. Hey, Bloom, put me down for 10 grand.

Chorus: (Singing) Prisoners of love, blue skies above. Can't keep a hoss in
jail.

Mr. LANE: Tempo, fellas. Pick up the tempo.

Chorus: (Singing) Prisoners of love.

Mr. LANE: That's it.

Chorus: (Singing) Our turtledoves...

Mr. LANE: Yes!

Chorus: (Singing) ...soon coming 'round with bail.

Mr. LANE: Sing it, boys. Let 'em hear you in solitary.

Chorus: (Singing) Oh, you can lock us up and lose the key, but hearts in love
are always free. Prisoners of love, blue skies above.

Mr. LANE: Take it home, you animals! We open in Leavenworth Saturday night.

Chorus: (Singing) But we're still prisoners, we're still prisoners, we're
still prisoners of love!

Unidentified Man #2: Hey, Bialystock...

(Credits)

GROSS: I'm Terry Gross. All of us at FRESH AIR wish you a happy New Year.
Transcripts are created on a rush deadline, and accuracy and availability may vary. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Please be aware that the authoritative record of Fresh Air interviews and reviews are the audio recordings of each segment.