Track Listing

1. Harps and Angels (5:07)
2. Losing You (2:42)
3. Laugh and Be Happy (2:19)
4. A Few Words in Defense of Our Country (4:13)
5. A Piece of the Pie (2:42)
6. Easy Street (3:14)
7. Korean Parents (3:27)
8. Only a Girl (2:44)
9. Potholes (3:42)
10. Feels Like Home (4:51)

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #6193 in Music
• Released on: 2008-08-04
• Number of discs: 1
• Dimensions: .26 pounds

Amazon.co.uk Review
Randy Newman lives an intriguing kind of double life. On the one hand he writes soaring, sentimental soundtracks for movies like Monsters Inc, Meet The Parents and Toy Story II; on the other he’s known as a cult musical satirist; a writer of albums known for their scathing, biting wit and anti-establishment stance. Harps & Angels is his first such outing since 1999’s Bad Love. It covers much of the same musical ground as most of his solo work--Dixieland swing, waltzing blues, Tom Waits-esque piano ballads and the occasional showtune--and though he’s now in his mid-60s, Newman appears to be as lyrically acerbic as he ever was. This time he trains his guns on post 9/11 America, poking fun at life in ‘the richest country in the world’ on “A Piece of the Pie,” and paying the Bush administration some backhanded compliments by comparing them (favourably) to Stalin, Hitler, Caesar and the Spanish Inquisition on the lilting country tune “A Few Words in Defense of Our Country”. The carnivalesque “Laugh and Be Happy” and the oriental pop of “Korean Parents” see Newman on quirky, upbeat form, while ballads such as “Losing You,” and “Feels Like Home” (a new version of an old classic) reveal a more sentimental side. Harps & Angels may not be as barbed and visceral as older material, but it has enough venom and humour to create some first class musical entertainment.--Danny McKenna

Guardain, July 2008
Slinky, bluesy piano work, witty, laconic, half-spoken vocals and a bitter-sweet story about mortality: it sounds like vintage Randy Newman, but it's actually a song from his new album, released early next month.

CD Description
Newman's first album of original material in 9 years, 'Harps and Angels' features the rich orchestrations typical of his work, and combines them with more stripped down compositions featuring Newman either solo on piano or accompanied by asmall band. Following on from the huge success of 2007's 'AFew Words In The Defence Of Our Country', 'Harps And Angels' showcases Newman's skill as a political songwriter, in contrast with the film scores he is best known for.

Customer Reviews

Reasons To Be Cheerful x 10
Sound The Trumpet ! Bang The Drum !
Mr Newman's Back In Town !

It's almost a decade since the pointed and poignant
pleasures of 'Bad Love' filled The Wolf Cave with the
warts-and-all intimacy of its bitter-sweet strains.

Make no mistake - 'Harps and Angels' is music that matters.
Music which truly does make the world, in a small but
tangible way, a better place.
It carries within it a vulnerability and jaded optimism born out
of a deep engagement with and understanding of his home country
and its' increasingly fragile place within a wider global context.

Whether in the big picture, 'A Few Words In Defence Of Our Country',
a sweet and savagely ironic song which the maestro has been playing
live for some time now, or in the small tender snapshot, 'Only A Girl',
Mr Newman's innate humanism is always present and warmly correct.

Dignity in the face of dissolution.

The big themes - growing older; ambivalence; love and family;
prejudice and injustice are all here, sewn together in a
tapestry of scintillatingly brilliant orchestral arrangements.
(The band is a real wonder !).

It will make you laugh out loud, 'A Piece Of The Pie' and
'Korean Parents' but it will also touch your heart, 'Losing You'
and 'Potholes' and in the end it may even just fill a small,
vacant, yearning space in your soul.

With the closing number,'Feels Like Home',we find ourselves frozen
in the presence of true greatness.
A heartbreaking performance of a profoundly beautiful song.

The Wolf's album of the year. I am confident it will not be bettered.

Essential.

Another Newman Treat
As soon as you hear the opening bars of Newman's rolling New Orleans piano you know you're in for another musical treat. Heavily influenced by Fats Domino, Tin Pan Alley and Dixieland his musical style allows no concessions to fashion but his great trick is to let the music accommodate and absorb his sardonic view of the world in general and the USA in particular.

Reserving much of his barbed wit for the Bush administration he does at least remind us, "In A Few Words In Defense Of Our Country" that George is not as bad as the Caesars, Hitler, Stalin or King Leopold of Belgium who plundered the Congo of gold, silver and diamonds and left the natives with...... malaria!

Then there is "A Piece Of The Pie" where "If you are living in the richest country in the world/wouldn't you think you'd have a better life" and observes that only Jackson Browne gives a sh*t.

In "Korean Parents" he shares his satirical view that American adolescents would have fewer problems and be less dangerous if they were brought up by Korean parents who seemed to have the necessary skills well honed which has a resonance with Asian parents in our own country.

But there are gentler numbers such as "Feels Like Home", "Only A Girl" and "Losing You" proving that Randy still has a sentimental side.

Produced by lifelong friend, Lenny Waronker, this album, his first studio effort in 9 years, has all of the strengths associated with Randy Newman: lush arrangements, full orchestral sounds, musically and lyrically astute songs, his shuffling, bluesey delivery and that wonderful stride piano.

Visited by Harps and Angels as he almost dies (due to a clerical error!) he says: "So actually the main thing about this story is for me/there really is an afterlife/and I hope to see all of you there/Let's go get a drink."

Amen to that, Randy.

Genius Music for grown-ups
You can't dance to it, it isn't remotely cool and it's by a man in his sixties with a strained, nasally voice. And it's great.

After four decades of writing and releasing music - albeit with some extended intervals - this new album stands to be compared favourably with the best Newman has ever produced.

In songwriting terms, "genius" is a much overused and devalued expression, regularly applied these days to anyone who can muster three basic chords along with a grasp of kindergarten English. In reality, few songwriters can match Newman's genius: Bob Dylan and Tom Waits come to mind; beyond that you're already struggling.

If there's a criticism, it's that at 35 minutes it's far too short when he's clearly on such fine form. But somehow Newman still runs the entire gamut of emotions from the cynical "A Few Words In Defense Of Our Country" to the pathos of "Losing You". And the music is as elegiac as ever. Brilliant.