Review
Variety, "Best Music Books of 2024"
“Randy Newman is our great master of American song and storytelling.”―Bruce Springsteen
“Apart from his many other astonishing gifts, I believe Randy Newman to be the finest American satirist in any medium in my lifetime.”―Garry Trudeau, creator of "Doonesbury"
“At last, the biography that Randy Newman has long deserved. The emotional precision, the humor and sweep, the truths and secrets behind his remarkable body of work . . . it’s all here in Robert Hilburn’s heartfelt and indispensable account of America’s finest songwriter. Leave it to Hilburn to pull back the curtain on the incredible life of Newman, a shy genius who clearly trusted him enough to point him in all the right directions. It’s more than a great read, it’s an invitation to re-visit Randy Newman’s work with renewed appreciation for the man who uniquely defined the American Experience just when we needed it most.”―Cameron Crowe
“A Few Words in Defense of Our Country is a strong and invaluable book. The title is perfect, and expands and deepens as the story goes on, and Randy's commitment to artistic citizenship, and Robert Hilburn's pursuit of the theme, give the book great weight. The argument powering Newman’s work is that defending your country means criticizing it, living in it as it really is, demanding that the country live up to its promises while acknowledging its betrayals.”―Greil Marcus, author of "Mystery Train" and "Lipstick Traces"
“Robert Hilburn presents Randy Newman front and center as an American treasure, a political lightning bolt and one of the finest songwriters of his generation. Like all of Hilburn’s biographies it is addictive and utterly definitive, an intoxicating blend of scrupulously researched detail and unearthed treasures.”―Bernie Taupin, Gershwin Award-winning lyricist and New York Times bestselling author of "Scattershot"
"A Few Words In Defense Of Our Country, by longtime Los Angeles Times music critic Robert Hilburn, is in the conversation for best biography of 2024."―The Aquarian
“Every time I go to Disneyland and hear Randy Newman’s fanfare that announces the thrill-ride of the “Cars” ride, I marvel at his genius for infiltration.
Robert Hilburn’s book makes a very good case for Newman being the composer of two or three songs that might serve as the national anthem of a more curious and a less vainglorious America. Some of those songs are heartbreaking and chilling, others are just flat out funny.”―Elvis Costello
“With A Few Words In Defense of Our Country, Robert Hilburn does an extraordinary feat: He reminds us that it is passion within a songwriter that is always the genesis for music. Hilburn’s thoroughly researched and skillfully narrated bio fully brings Newman's passion to life. This book stands as the definitive biography of one of our greatest songwriters.”―Charles R. Cross, author of "Heavier Than Heaven: A Biography of Kurt Cobain" and "Room Full of Mirrors: A Biography of Jimi Hendrix"
"Randy Newman may not have lived rock and roll’s reprobate life of sex, drugs, and rehab, but it turns out to be a fascinating story anyway. Hilburn's biography fills us with renewed awe for Randy’s courage, humour, and musical genius – and with love for his deep humanity. In earning the trust of his subject – and the trust of his subject's family and friends – the legendary Los Angeles Times critic gives us a full sense of Randy’s character and brilliant mind.”―Barney Hoskyns, author of "Hotel California," "Waiting for the Sun," and "Small Town Talk"
"[A] penetrating biography. . . . While the book posits Newman as a writer of sociopolitical import, its emotional narrative is driven by the more personal aspects of his story: a complex family legacy, childhood struggles with strabismus (crossed eyes) and a lifelong tendency toward sadness and isolation."―New York Times
"A passionate and richly reported biography of [a] great American songwriter."―Los Angeles Times
“[A Few Words in Defense of Our Country] is straightforward, helpful in clarifying the intentions underlying Newman’s most challenging songs. This is an authorized telling, written with the participation of its subject, who contributes comments with restrained candor and wry, arch wit. Hilburn, whose previous books include solid, comprehensive biographies of three other major songwriters of the rock era—Johnny Cash, Paul Simon, and Bruce Springsteen—knows his territory.”―David Hajdu, The Atlantic
“[Hilburn has] performed the heroic brute labor of interviewing seemingly everybody in Newman's life and organizes it into a narrative that will convince any relative newcomer to Newman's work that this guy is some kind of genius.”―Fresh Air, NPR
“An Illuminating and masterful achievement."―Booklist (starred review)
“Hilburn serves up an affectionate tribute to Randy Newman. . . . Throughout, Hilburn astutely analyzes how Newman uses literary devices like the unreliable narrator to probe the absurdities of ’a strange and tragic period in [America’s] history.’ In the process, Hilburn makes clear, Newman broadened the boundaries of what pop music can do. The result is an intimately detailed portrait of a vital American songwriter.”―Publishers Weekly
"Most pop songs are love songs. Not Randy Newman’s. He writes cycles of contempt; he is a maestro of malice, a bard of bile. . . . He is, in many ways, the Mark Twain of rock ’n’ roll—he weaponized the language of racism to show how ugly it really is.
In Robert Hilburn’s A Few Words in Defense of Our Country, we learn that Newman, whose lyrics are like rancid short stories and whose melodies are like satirical mini-symphonies, even created a character, Johnny Cutler, an assembly-line worker in Birmingham who wanted to make America great again 50 years ago."―David Yaffe, Air Mail
"For fans of Newman or anyone who loves a good story, this is a must-read... It’s the definitive take on a legend who has captured the respect of musical giants like Bob Dylan and Bruce Springsteen—and for good reason."―Why Now (UK)
“Finally, [Randy Newman] has the biography the breadth of his talent and influence deserves. . . . It’s a supremely detailed account of an extraordinary career. . . . The picture that emerges is of a constantly inspired musician, avuncular and angry in equal measure, whose formidable body of work is woven in the very fabric of a nation.” (***** Five Stars)―Record Collector
”Before I read Robert Hilburn’s biography of Randy Newman, I didn’t know Newman was kind of lying in interviews when he said his song ‘Short People’ was about prejudice. ‘I just thought it was funny,’ he said.”―Dwight Garner, New York Times
"Talk about a biography that nothing has ever been accomplished quite like it before. Robert Hilburn’s mind-reeling tome about popular music’s lone wolf, Randy Newman, is a jaw-dropping study of a major artist who broke every rule that ever existed... There might never be a biography like this, and there surely won’t be another artist like Randy Newman. Read and believe."―Americana Highways, "Book of the Month"
"I opened [this book] as soon as it arrived in the mail, and not just to see how well the graf Hilburn asked me to chip in came out. I craved the facts and insights I hoped and believed Hilburn would provide, and I wasn’t disappointed."―"And It Don't Stop" Substack
About the Author
Robert Hilburn was the chief pop music critic and pop music editor of the Los Angeles Times from 1970 through 2005. Since then, he has focused his attentions on writing biographies of some of the most celebrated musicians in modern history, including John Lennon, Johnny Cash, and Paul Simon. He lives in Los Angeles.
