Album Title: Bad Love
Artist: Randy Newman
Release Date: June 1, 1999
Shame
I'm Dead (But I Don't Know It)
Every Time It Rains
The Great Nations of Europe
The One You Love
The World Isn't Fair
Big Hat, No Cattle
Better Off Dead
I Miss You
Going Home
I Want Everyone to Like Me
All songs written by Randy Newman
When Randy Newman released the album Bad Love in 1999, it had been over a decade since his last solo studio album, though he had done a considerable amount of soundtrack work and released the soundtrack to his musical Faust in the intervening period. Most of his previous few albums, though they all contained some good and even great songs, had been somewhat inconsistent for a writer of Newman’s caliber. But Bad Love, though it might not be quite the equal of Newman’s early albums like Sail Away, comes very close to those classics in quality. The lyrics are as ironically clever and well-written as those on Newman’s best albums, and they are coupled with great melodies (unlike quite a few of his more recent songs, where he speaks as much as or more than he sings). There is a lot of stylistic variety in the music and the production by Mitchell Froom and Tchad Blake brings out the best in the songs and in Newman’s voice, which is quite effective despite his vocal limitations. Close to half the songs on the album are truly brilliant and deserve to be regarded as classics, and the rest are all at least good. Unfortunately, in spite of Newman’s relative prominence and positive reviews from critics, this album sold very little at the time, even compared with some of Newman’s own previous releases, which have never been huge sellers. It is one of the most underrated albums that I know of.
Bad Love Song by Song
My Country: The album opens with a song that represents everything I like about Newman’s best songs. In fact, it has a lot in common with “Sail Away”, probably my favorite Newman song of all. For one thing, both have a great melody, particularly the choruses, and someone who didn’t listen very closely might think they are meant to be uplifting, even patriotic songs. But a closer listen reveals the biting irony that Newman so often displays. What’s more, his use of irony is particularly keen in these two songs, in that it is subtle and yet not so subtle that it isn’t obvious in one close reading of the lyrics. In this instance, Newman takes the perspective of a man who talks of nights he and his family spent together, not having deep discussions or sharing anything of real importance, but watching television together. It has some really great lines that are both humorous and insightful about the shallowness of the character and his family relationships, as well as the things they watch (“We’ve got comedy, tragedy/Everything from A to B”). There’s even a line in the chorus that I misheard as perhaps more ironic than even Newman himself intended – according to the lyrics, he sings “This is my country/These are my people/I know them like the back of my own hand”, but to me “hand” sounded like “head”. This was probably not intentional on Newman’s part (though you never know), but of course even the intended lyric is ironic in that the character doesn’t really know his family all that well. In any case, not being a big fan of television and the propensity of modern people – including all too often myself – to spend all their time glued to a screen (now including portable ones on phones and other devices), I particularly appreciated this track.
Shame: This is another one of the standout tracks on the album, and one that seems to be a favorite of Newman himself. The interplay between Newman in his role as the song’s protagonist and the R&B backing vocalists singing “Shame, shame, shame, shame, shame” is particularly clever and amusing. The music is excellent, both in terms of composition and arrangement and the lyrics are well-written. The song is perhaps less easy listening in some ways than the others on the album, simply because, like in many of his best songs, Newman inhabits the character he is playing so fully, and (again like in many of his best songs), that character is a bit creepy. Here he is an old self-centered rich man in love with, or rather obsessed with, an attractive younger woman, who his song is directed at. While in most of the song he alternates between pleading and petulant complaining, at one point he hints strongly at a violent undercurrent to his personality, leaving the listener to hope the target of his affections has the sense to stay away from him. In a sense, this makes the song even more impressive as a piece of art, which is no doubt why Newman himself likes it. But it might be a bit of jolt for listeners who aren’t used to this type of writing in popular music, and it means this song is unlikely to be covered by many other artists, despite its many merits.
I’m Dead (But I Don’t Know It) (amazingly and unfortunately, the album version doesn't seem to be on YouTube anywhere, so the link is to one of Newman's many live performances of the song): This is yet another excellent track, in all its aspects – music, arrangement and lyrics. One of the most rocking songs Newman has done, it mocks over-the-hill rockers who persist in continuing their careers despite noticeable drop-offs in the quality of their work. It has some great lines, such as “I have nothing left to say/But I’m gonna say it anyway” and “Each record that I’m making/Is like a record I’ve made/Just not as good”, and the electric guitars (reminiscent of Brian May of Queen) are used to great effect. Of course this isn’t to say that all old rockers should necessarily take the track to heart, as many of them, including Newman himself, continue to make worthwhile albums. But the type of character Newman portrays here definitely exists, and the problem of knowing when to quit is something people in all sorts of fields from art to sports have to face. All in all, it’s another great song.
Every Time It Rains: This song is one of the most straight-forward on the album, which is why Newman himself considers it a lesser work (though he also notes that it’s the kind of song others are more likely to cover). It may not quite equal the previous three, simply because it lacks the brilliantly ironic lyrics they have, but it’s still a very good song with a beautiful melody and an evocative atmosphere. Perhaps just because of the word “rain”, it sort of reminds me of Newman’s early classic “I Think It’s Going to Rain Today". Apparently Newman wrote it with Michael Jackson in mind, and while Jackson never recorded it, Joe Cocker covered it.
The Great Nations of Europe: This is yet another brilliant track, on par with the first three. The music is a dramatic march, perfectly fitting the lyrics, which in just a few minutes thoroughly eviscerate the Europeans of the Age of Exploration for their wholesale destruction of both wildlife and native peoples in the lands they explored. It features yet more great lines like “There were natives there called Guanches/Guanches by the score/Bullets, disease, the Portuguese and they weren’t there anymore”. Newman concludes the song by suggesting that we may someday by wiped out by a disease from Africa (presumably something like AIDS or Ebola) in the same way the Europeans of the sixteenth century wiped out the native peoples of the Americas. While the metaphor seems a bit of stretch, not so much because the Europeans were not as destructive as a virulent plague (in some ways they were more so, since as Newman points out they destroyed wildlife as well as their fellow humans), but because there is a lot of difference in the pattern of the destruction they cause, but it is still a fairly clever one. While it may not quite equal the rest of the song, it’s a more satisfying conclusion than that in Sting’s similar (and also quite well-written) “Children’s Crusade”, where a brilliant pair of verses about the slaughter that World War I wreaked among England’s youth is somewhat let down by an analogy with the epidemic of drug use among contemporary English youth, which despite its seriousness could not begin to compare with the destructiveness of the war. But even without their conclusions, both songs provide useful history lessons in the most compact and entertaining fashion possible.
The One You Love: This song, an R&B-style track that takes a cynical look at love, is slightly less memorable than the ones before it, but it’s still a solid effort that would be a standout track on an album by a lesser artist.
The World Isn’t Fair (another song where the only versions on YouTube are live performances): This is yet another great song, perhaps the last of the tracks on the album that reaches the level of a true classic, with the possible exception of the closing track. In the first half of the song, Newman provides a capsule biography of Karl Marx, and in the second half he imagines telling Marx about what was done with his plan (“If you’d seen how they worked it/You’d be glad you were dead”) and showing him around Newman’s own world, in which, as Newman brilliantly concludes, “…the rich just richer/And the poor you don’t ever have to see/It would depress us, Karl/Because we care/That the world still isn’t fair”. On this track Newman once more neatly tackles a big issue in just a few minutes of song. If this song has a minor flaw it is that the melody, while good, is not quite the equal those of the first few tracks, and Newman speaks rather than sings some of his lines. This isn’t necessarily such a bad thing, as it’s really just another style of performance with just as much artistic merit as singing. But since I am generally a big fan of melody I would probably rank songs like “My Country” or “The Great Nations of Europe” slightly higher than this one – but only slightly.
Big Hat, No Cattle: This is a cowboy song about a man whose entire life is built on lies. It’s a minor effort compared to what went before, but still good, and it adds even more musical variety to the album.
Better Off Dead: This song is somewhat like “The One You Love”, as it is also a cynical look at love. It’s another good song with a solid arrangement, if not as great as some of what went before.
I Miss You: This is an unusually personal song for Newman, directed at his ex-wife. While some of Newman’s typical cynicism makes an appearance (“I’d sell my soul and your souls for a song”), it is still heartfelt. Lyrically it’s rather simple, but it’s nevertheless effective.
Going Home: This is a short, simple little song that was apparently inspired by World War I. It actually dates back to the late 1970s, and appeared in demo form on the Newman box set Guilty: 30 Years of Randy Newman. While not as memorable as some of the other tracks, it’s a nice, old-fashioned sounding little tune.
I Want Everyone to Like Me: This upbeat track is another fairly personal song for Newman, as the character he plays seems to closely resemble Newman himself. Simply put, he’s in show business because he wants everyone to like him. While he’s occasionally egotistical (“I’d like to learn the respect of my peers…I’d like to find out where they are, by the way”), in reality deep down, he’s “a little insecure”. This is yet another track on which a very good melody is paired with clever, well-written (and meaningful) lyrics, so it makes an appropriate closer for an album of highly varied, very well-written songs that once again illustrate that Newman deserves his reputation as one of the greatest songwriters of his generation.
