Friday 28 November 2008

Randy Again

Randy Newman - no stranger to this blog - is 65 today. Another of those birthdays that make you suddenly feel that bit older yourself... Here he is in his younger days, singing one of his most beautiful songs. Enjoy...

3 comments:

  1. Nice one Nige, just the ticket after a day mainly spent logging (not on but chopping down)
    It followed a Chris Barber session ending in Bad Penny Blues. So shagged can't go out and in any case as a conservative am now deeply concerned about being arrested by the Guardians military enforcers, the plod.

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  2. Listen to the lyrics of that song...It's a negro spiritual. I wondered at "don't have to scuff your feet in the jungle" to have enough to eat, but I knew it for sure when he hit the "buckwheat cakes and watermelon." This is about free blacks coming to America. Well, i hope free. Do you know the origin of the lyrics, Nige? Surely not by Randy Newman.

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  3. Yes it's an extraordinary song Susan. I think you could break it down to a slave trader's pitch which steals beauty, lyricism and yearning from negro spiritual - heavily ironic, as always with RN, but here the beauty wins out, I think.

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