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POLITICS AND FETISHES
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Randy Newman’s show last weekend featured the most unusual audience sing-along in recent memory. "I’m Dead (But I Don’t Know It)" (from his last all-new album, 1999’s DreamWorks release Bad Love) concerns that saddest of creatures, the past-his-prime rock star. On Saturday night at Berklee Performance Center, the audience got to act as a Greek chorus, shouting "You’re dead, you’re dead!" while the singer made exaggerated attempts to rock out. Despite Newman’s on-stage jokes at his own expense, the audience understood that the song isn’t autobiographical. Newman may be a long-time cult figure and critical favorite, but he’s never been a rock star. And his work has been relatively unchanged by time. The world view and the cynical wit haven’t darkened much, since he was already jaded in his 20s. And unlike some of his contemporaries, Newman has never lost his singing voice. Some might argue that he never had much of one to lose, but that’s missing the point: like Bob Dylan, he has one of those technically awful singing voices that’s so perfectly suited to his material that it becomes a great voice by association. Newman’s live show has also changed very little in the past two decades. He always performs solo, does a lot of funny banter between songs, and jumps freely about his catalogue, seldom doing a thematic segue or settling long on one album. (His second career as a film composer was ignored save for one pleasant number from Toy Story.) At Berklee he did two sets, generally favoring the funnier numbers in the first and the deeper ones in the second. And he was able to fit a few dozen in, since the songs are so economical. Many of his trademark numbers (notably "Sail Away" and "Louisiana 1927," both done late in the show) have just two verses and two choruses. The only songs that haven’t aged well are the ones from the early ’80s ("My Life Is Good," "I Love L.A.") that poke fun at the Los Angeles lifestyle — not a target worth the attention. The once-controversial "Rednecks" has also lost much of its shock value and its topicality (who thinks much about either Dick Cavett or Lester Maddox these days?), yet it’s saved by Newman’s sympathy for the narrator. On the other hand, he played a pair of political songs — "Song for the Dead" and "Follow the Flag" — that sounded extremely topical (the latter, with a deliberately simplistic good-versus-evil lyric, could be a recent presidential speech); yet both were recorded in the ’80s. Rather than following that thread, he shifted gears again with "You Can Leave Your Hat On." It was the night’s oddest segue, but it made sense: in Newman’s world, political disasters and guys with headwear fetishes are equally worthy of a few minutes of attention.
BY BRETT MILANO
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