History Music / RandyNewman

** "I Love L.A." Music - Fun, rock n' roll party music. Lyrics - Rich, privileged Los Angelans being so in love with their city that they accept homelessness as just one of it's many charming quirks. Not surprisingly, this is one of his only songs to get a music video... which depicts him [[MusicVideoOvershadowing happily cruising around L.A. in a Cadillac]]. He later performed the song with Music/Maroon5 when they played L.A., complete with the Laker Girls dancing with them. Perhaps he was just amused by how much everyone was missing the point?

* HeroesWantRedheads: Subverted; at least a couple of songs are about an innocent redheaded girl being taken advantage of by the narrator.

* ''WesternAnimation/MonstersInc'' (2001)

* ''WesternAnimation/{{Cars}}'' (2006)

** "How Great Our Lord" from ''Randy Newman's Faust'' is one for ''God'', voiced by Creator/JamesTaylor, no less.

* NukeEm: "Political Science", sometimes [[RefrainFromAssuming incorrectly known]] by its refrain of "Let's drop the big one now."

%%* OscarBait: Played straight and subverted.

* SpiritualSuccessor: Motion picture scoring-wise, he's basically the modern day Music/ElmerBernstein, whom Randy had worked with on ''Film/ThreeAmigos'' with Elmer writing the score and Randy writing the songs.

* NiceHat: Implied in "You Can Leave Your Hat On", as the singer wants the subject to take all their clothes off except their hat.

* BlackComedy: A specialty of his. Many of his songs are from the points of view of an UnreliableNarrator or VillainProtagonist, sometimes with a heaping helping of LyricalDissonance. See "Political Science," a jolly ditty about nuclear annihilation, and "Sail Away," seemingly an optimistic song but actually implied to be sung from the point of view of a slaver. Another example is "Burn On", supposedly an ode to Cleveland that's actually about the Cuyahoga river [[GreenAesop catching fire from pollution]]. If you pay attention to his lyrics you'll find BlackComedy aplenty.

* JerkassHasAPoint: Several of his narrators make decent points despite being terrible themselves. Consider God in "That's Why I Love Mankind" pointing out how self-destructive and foolish humanity is, or the singer of "Rednecks", who comes off as racist and ignorant but points out that the North has also put Black Americans "in a cage" in its own way.

* BlackComedy: A specialty of his. Many of his songs are from the points of view of an UnreliableNarrator or VillainProtagonist, sometimes with a heaping helping of JerkassHasAPoint. See "Rednecks", which ridicules the South but later reverses to call out liberals who condemn racism while keeping Black Americans in "cages" of poverty in major cities. Another example is "Burn On", supposedly an ode to Cleveland that's actually about the Cuyahoga river [[GreenAesop catching fire from pollution]].

* BlackComedy: A specialty of his. Many of his songs are from the points of view of an UnreliableNarrator or VillainProtagonist, sometimes with a heaping helping of JerkassHasAPoint. See "Rednecks", which ridicules the South but later reverses to call out liberals who condemn racism while keeping Black Americans in "cages" of poverty in its major cities. Another example is "Burn On", supposedly an ode to Cleveland that's actually about the Cuyahoga river [[GreenAesop catching fire from pollution]].

* BlackComedy: A specialty of his. Many of his songs are from the points of view of an UnreliableNarrator or VillainProtagonist, often with a heaping helping of JerkassHasAPoint.

** "How Great Our Lord" from ''Faust'' is a straight-up VillainSong for God, showing him condemning Buddhists to Hell and lying to his angels.

* GodIsEvil: "God's Song (That's Why I Love Mankind)" has several verses being sung from God's perspective which show him to be quite cruel toward humans. As is typical with Newman songs though, it's not entirely clear how serious he's being (since Newman is a "devout atheist" it's possibly serious). God in the song seemingly just despises humanity ("I recoil in horror from the foulness of thee/From the squalor and the filth and the misery"), and likes that living in these conditions makes people turn to him.

** Possibly intentional given its satirical nature, but "A Few Words in Defense of Our Country" makes a few incorrect claims about Leopold II and the atrocities in the Congo. The song asserts Leopold "took the diamonds...silver...gold" when in reality they were initially interested in ivory and later heavily invested in rubber. He also claims that they "left" the Congo with malaria, but malaria is widespread in Africa, having originated there. In fact, malaria had long been detrimental to European presence in the Congo before the age of Leopold II.

* ArtisticLicenseHistory: "In Germany Before the War" is about serial killer Peter Kurten. However, it says he killed in 1934. By then however Kurten was dead, executed for murder. He actually committed most of the murders in 1929. His execution took place in 1931. This was probably done because it rhymed with the previous verse.

%%* LyricalDissonance: One of Newman's favorite tactics.

* LyricalDissonance: One of Newman's favorite tactics.

* UsefulNotes/{{Cleveland}}: "Burn On", about the Cuyahoga River's unfortunate tendency to catch on fire.
-->"Cleveland, city of light! City of magic!"
* CoolOldGuy: Has been composing music for more than five decades, and still going strong.
* DyingTown: Another favorite theme, ranging from the sarcastic (the aforementioned "Burn On") to the tragic ("Baltimore").

* IncestIsRelative: Implied in the lyrics of "Naked Man":
-->He said, "They found out about my sister/Kicked me out of the Navy/They would have strung me up if they could/I tried to explain that we were both of us lazy/And were doing the best we could."
* IsntItIronic: See below.

* ''Film/TheNatural'' (1984),

* ''Film/{{Parenthood}}'' (1989),
* ''Film/{{Awakenings}}'' (1990),

* ''WesternAnimation/ToyStory1'' (1995),

* ''WesternAnimation/ABugsLife'' (1998),

%% * OscarBait: Played straight and subverted.