You've got more than a friend in Randy Newman

It's largely true that, as Kurt Anderson says, most of my generation knows Randy Newman as the smily-voiced singer responsible for "You've Got a Friend in Me," the little ballad with the happy ache that served as the emotional centerpiece for Disney/ Pixar's Toy Story. And if the generation just after mine doesn't recognize Newman's work in Toy Story, Monster's Inc., Cars, or A Bug's Life, they might recall his parodied appearance in Family Guy as a washed up cocktail singer stumbling through improvised piano numbers at the Griffin's vacation spot.

In a recent interview with Anderson on Studio 360, Newman jokes that even his kids' friends "know me from that." Newman is all the more likable for taking the Family Guy joke with good humor. "You know it isn't a bad song," says Newman. "It's got things rhyming that are pretty good. It's got the same three chords that I use."

If the parody gets Newman's knack for rhyme and simple song structures right, it misses his real appeal entirely. The accuracy of the show's caricature of Newman is debatable. Some may think of him as a burned-out songwriter. But it'd be hard to make a case for him as a songwriter who bases his lyrical material on stream of consciousness observations of bar life, as one character does.

In fact, Newman's actual songs are executed with some of the finest lyrical economy I've witnessed in any American songwriter. You almost never find more details in them than is necessary for him to make his point. Whether talking about U.S. foreign relations ("Political Science"), complicated family ties ("Memo to My Son"), or the isolation of stardom ("Lonely at the Top"), Newman rarely needs more than ten verses, a refrain, and a deft twist of phrase to nail his subject.

Compare him with a descriptive-obsessive like Dylan (a songwriter whose style is a much better fit for The Family Guy critique) and you've got a songwriter of exceptional restraint and brevity who goes further than most with far fewer words. And then there's Newman's secret weapon: a cuddly tone and style of phrasing whose unassuming charm acts an ironic counterpoint when he's delivering his most dubious material. The combination casts a spell few can match. I don't know another singer who can make me want to smile and sing along with a line like "let's drop the big one, pulverize 'em."

His 1972 album Sail Away witnesses these Newman trademarks as completely as any I can think of. While there's nothing wrong with his work for Disney, Sail Away is the Newman more of my generation ought to know.