In 1977, Newman began work on his first major soundtrack since Cold Turkey when he was approached to score Milos Forman's film adaption of E.L. Doctorow's novel Ragtime, the Czech director's follow up to his Oscar-winning One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest. An early "exercise" in writing from historical perspectives, "Sigmund Freud's Impersonation Of Albert Einstein In America" (featuring such eyebrow-raising lines as "..Gypsy thighs that pound and pound/And African appendages that almost reach the ground") was included on Little Criminals, crediting the book for inspiration, but was not included in the film. Curiously, the scene in which another song was performed (the jaunty "Change Your Way") was cut from the film, though the song remains on the soundtrack album.
Working with a full orchestra for the first time in years, Newman's instrumental music and arrangements sparkle. The title theme (reprised in an Acadamy Award-nominated vocal version, "One More Hour," sung by Jennifer Warnes) is one of Newman's most attractive and haunting tunes. An impressive array of rags, waltzes, and polkas were featured on the soundtrack album, although some twenty other tracks either heard in or recorded for the picture (including "Evelyn's Statue," "White Man," "Ice Cream," "Model 'T''," "Chopin To Rag," and "Coalhouse Audition") remain unreleased. This Elektra soundtrack album (Newman's only non-Warners studio album) and his 1987 soundtrack for ¡Three Amigos! remain his only albums yet to be issued on CD.
Two theatrical productions from 1981 featured Newman's music, though he was involved with neither directly. Maybe I'm Doing It Wrong, was conceived and directed by Joan Micklin Silver, and ran Off-Broadway in New York and in La Jolla and Los Angeles, California; more than twenty-five previously released Newman songs were performed in different contexts by its cast members. A Sam Shepard play, Seduced, also incorporated Newman songs, predominantly as background music.