When the new album finally appeared in October 1988, it was understandably met with a queasy mix of anticipation and apathy by fans and critics alike. Few expected to hear songs about Newman himself -- and for once, human comedy without the irony.
The wonderfully detailed trilogy that opens the album, "Dixie Flyer," "New Orleans Wins The War" and "Four Eyes" (a nightmarish account of the first days of school), offers a view of Newman he had never before made available, looking back from his mid-forties in a dry, mature light. It was, as he told Performing Songwriter interviewer Lydia Hutchinson in 1995 "an exercise as a writer, because I'm so much not biographical ... in a medium where it's expected." The exercise works well enough to make one wish he had dedicated an entire album to the idea, but Newman sidesteps expectation: the next two songs on the album, "Falling In Love" and "Something Special" are simple, unaffected love songs, again without ironic distance. These songs, too, come across as exercises in writing love songs -- which Newman can still pull off as capably or better than most other pop songwriters -- yet one senses the artist holding back; these are the kinds of songs Randy would likely send up on another album. A mood piece, "Bad News From Home" continues the unusual direction.
When Newman's familiar ironic voice returns in the album's second half, it seems both reassuring and somewhat anticlimactic - a backing off from the risks taken earlier on the album. A majority of the songs tread water: a flat rap parody "Masterman And Baby J" (far funnier in Newman's primitive home demo), a poke at gang mentality, "Red Bandana," and a sketch of an unflappable patriot, "Follow The Flag," update (but add little to) his library of character studies.
The album's first single, "It's Money That Matters" (b/w "Roll With The Punches," Warners 7-27709) reworks "It's Money That I Love" from a moderate liberal perspective -- its "Money For Nothing"-styled guitar riff (topic fatigue here?), courtesy of album co-producer Mark Knopfler, seemed a transparent ruse to milk Knopfler's platinum sound to broaden Newman's demographics; aided by another Tim Newman video, the single once again skimmed the charts. Despite Newman's misgivings, his charming piano-driven home demo has a scale more in keeping with the song narrative (plus some dry-run lyrics that didn't make the cut: "They stand on the corner/In the old neighborhood/They can fart every note/That Beethoven wrote/It's done them no good.")
The album takes an unexpected turn at its close: the anthemic "I Just Want You To Hurt Like I Do" was initially described by Newman as an answer to "We Are The World" (reputedly because he was not invited to the sessions); his remark effectively distracts from the song's semi-autobiographical introduction: "I ran out on my children/ And I ran out on my wife/Gonna run out on you too, baby/I done it all my life ... " Coming from Newman, this could be taken as just another narrator's voice; read in the light of his little-publicized divorce, the plainspoken verse has a more unsettling impact.
Linked with a title chorus (which the narrator offers his son as an explanation for his actions: "I just want you to hurt like I do/Honest I do...") that seems neither ironic nor fully explained, the lyrics have a personal tone quite distinct from the opening trilogy. While not strictly "confessional" -- Randy remains married to his second wife, Gretchen, with whom he has had two additional children -- this private, simply complex song can be read as either hurtful or healing.
Newman also stockpiled a fair number of quality home demos and unreleased songs from the Land of Dreams sessions, partly due to the album's long-delayed release date, and partly his new-found productivity. Some titles: "Vicki" (a "pop thing," per Newman, performed at the Third Annual Salute to the American Songwriter show in November 1978), and "Brand New Morning" (a song briefly reprised as a coda in the Dreams LP song "New Orleans Wins The War."
Among the losses: one of Newman's most sublime demos, "Days Of Heaven," considers the search for some meaning in life with a relatively straight face -- "Mom and dad have passed away/Didn't love you anyway/Just sit up in your room and cry for hours/ Life is short and time is too/And there's nothing you or I can do/But watch the little birds and smell the flowers../This life is just anticipation/Of days of heaven." Newman's impressively quick-fingered piano here is a testament to his renewed efforts in practicing his piano lessons. A rolling blues, "What Have You Done To Me," benefits from his bone-dry vocal: "Little girl, you see my life is over/To think, like a fool, I thought it had just begun/Now in the autumn of my years/I'm left to flick away the tears/What have you done/What have you done?" An urgent minor-key composition, "Little Darling," concerns another wayward girl ("You're gonna do what you're gonna do/Go ahead and do it anyway"); the forcefully rhythmic "Modern Man," looks at the new attitudes needed for these new times.
One of his best unreleased demos, the wild rag "I Want Everyone To Like Me," is centered on Newman's comfortably detached vocal ("Listen to this. Like it?/I want everyone to approve of me/To disapprove of me/Makes me feel so sad/I wanna earn the respect of my peers/Though it take a hundred years/I'd like to find out who they are/So I could run to embrace them/Hilary Clinton ... ?"); the song is punctuated with unpredictable bursts of staccato piano runs. Over the top.
Newman also paid hommage to another songwriter he admired, Arthur Alexander, in 1987, covering his hit "You Better Move On" on David Sanborn's musician showcase, NBC's Sunday Night. An outtake of the song, recorded during a special "Dixie Supersession" edition of Timothy White's Rock Stars radio show in November 1988, also exists. Newman (piano and vocals) and Dreams coproducer Mark Knopfler (on guitar) perform other live songs together on the show, including "Dixie Flyer," "Follow The Flag," and Domino's "I'm In Love Again" (Newman's studio recording of the latter track appears on the Sire/Warner soundtrack for 1988's Shag: The Movie).