Randy Newman Song Quotations

I've written a song for Prince. I never showed it to Prince, but just to see if I could do it. At the time, when I sort of knew him, he was recording a song a day. I wondered if I could do that. So I wrote it.

I started recording because I was always complaining about the records that I was getting of my songs. At least if I did them and messed them up, I wouldn't have anyone else to blame.

What I'm most pleased about is that there's no particular decline. The songs I wrote 40 years ago are no worse and no better - there's a consistency.

Most of my songs are about insensitivity of some kind.

The easiest thing I do is assignment songs. They tell me what they need me to write. I can do that fairly quickly. Writing for an orchestra is difficult. Writing songs [on your own] is most difficult of all. Though [writing for] the orchestra is close.

I've written about a lot of different things, but the whole idea of writing for another character is unusual for pop music. Most of the repertory is love songs, and most of mine isn't. I don't know if that's a mental defect, or shyness, or what.

The best of my songs are more than just a joke. There's something else going on - a character, or it's not just a plain joke.

If I were to die tomorrow, I think they'd say Newman 56, composer of the hit song, Short People. Jumped off a mountain today.