In 1982, three other stage shows featured Newman compositions: a St. Louis, Missouri, production of One For The Road (which also featuring Stephen Foster, George Gershwin and Cole Porter songs), New York's Louis Falco Dance Company performance of Black And Blue (Newman and Nilsson songs), and an Off-Broadway review, American Pie (with Newman, Laura Nyro and Don McLean songs). No related soundtracks were released.
One memorable outtake dating from a 1982 session at Village Recorders Studio went by the eyebrow-raising title "Big Smelly Country Song." Just what inspired this title may never be known; the song itself features one of Newman's most genuinely relaxed vocals set to a country-flavored shuffle: "I've got a house on Elm Street/A backyard/Got flowers all around me/I love that street/Got friends up and down it/They all get together when the sun goes down/Yes, I've got something to sing about.." Way too sunny, and never more real.
Delayed by a mysterious and recurrent fatigue syndrome Newman was experiencing, Trouble In Paradise was finally issued in early 1983 to mixed critical reviews. The third (and most overtly commercial sounding) chapter of what could be read as Newman's "L.A. Pop LP" trilogy, the album featured an all-star army of West Coast-based supporting players: Don Henley, Linda Ronstadt, Bob Seger, Ricki Lee Jones, and Lindsey Buckingham on vocals and most of the group Toto on instrumental backing. It also marked, after sixteen years, the final non-soundtrack album that either Waronker or Titelman's has produced for Newman.
The album's lead single,"The Blues" (b/w "Same Girl" (Warner Bros. 7-29803) lampooned "confessional" singer-songwriters, such as Paul Simon (who sang alternate lead and backing vocal on the song): "He's gonna tell you 'bout his dear old mother/ Burned up in a factory in Springfield, Mass.." Sadly, this meeting of two multi-talented, mutually admiring songwriters resulted in a less than historic single: the bland song never dented the Top 40. Speaking with Timothy White in 1988, Randy identified it as a misstep: "The only song I regret writing -- there are songs I regret writing for quality reasons -- but the sentiment of it was, like, too rough was "The Blues." In that song, I make fun of a kid going to his music for refuge, 'cause..I'd never done it. And I regret it, because there are thousands of kids who do, you know, go to their room and play the piano because their life is crappy."
The album's second single, "I Love L.A" (b/w "Song For The Dead," Warners 7-29687) also missed the top 40 (a promo-only cassette, Reprise PRO-C-1090, featuring that song and three others linked by a spoken introduction by Newman was issued to radio stations in 1983). "I Love L.A." was granted an extended second life, primarily through MTV's and VH-1's heavy rotation of the song's hip-but-twisted video (shot by Randy's cousin, Tim) throughout the summer of 1983. (In October 1984, media mogul Ted Turner also aired the video to launch his new cable music channel, and in 1988, the video was appended to three album tracks on an early CD-video disc, Warner Bros. 025680.) The song's breezy, flip attitude ("Hate New York City/It's cold and it's damp/And all the people dress like monkeys/Let's leave Chicago to the eskimos..") easily overwhelms what few snippets of darker irony Newman allowed -- even the double-edged line "Look at that bum/He's down on his knees" had a improbably cheerful spin.
It seemed perversely appropriate when the song became the city's unofficial anthem heard throughout television coverage of the Los Angeles Summer Olympics in 1984 (during which Nike also featured the song in a Tim Newman-directed campaign); Later that fall, the song could be heard charging up fans at Lakers home games. The P.R. spin reached an absurd level when, on September 14, 1994, Newman was presented with the keys to the city and an unofficial proclamation recognizing the song's positive impact. In a fitting act of closure, the single was included in a time capsule buried on December 14, 1994 -- a promotional stunt for the upcoming Jeff Bridges' movie Starman.
Of the albums remaining songs, a few ambitious ones stand out: "Christmas In Capetown" comes across as a South African "Rednecks," although the strained degree of some details ("You know the big old lunch pails they carry man/With a picture of Star Wars painted on the side/They were starin' at us real hard with their big ugly yellow eyes..") may disturb for unintended reasons. "Same Girl" and "Real Emotional Girl" recall classic early Newman in their simple piano-and- string arrangements, concise lyrics and haunting melodies.
But a majority of the songs make it more on their rhythmic pop smarts ("There's A Party At My House," "Take Me Back") than their lyrics alone ("Bobby, get the rope!"). The album's centerpiece, "My Life Is Good," unreels an epic send-up of the Priviledged White American in the mid-1980' (the narrator refers to himself as "Rand," albeit none too convincingly). During a spoken segment, the narrator describes a meeting with a "Mr. Bruce Springsteen" ("that's right.."), where the two discuss a "woodblock or something," and "Bruce" remarks, "Rand, I'm tired/How would you like to be The Boss for a while?"; "Rand" responds lustily: "Well,...yeah!" Honest aspirations aside, it was Newman who seemed more exhausted at this point, reduced to picking away at petty or redundant issues. It would be a five-year wait until his next studio album.
In France, the album was released with a unique limited-edition promotional album titled Un Samedi En Decembre (WEA PRO 1016) -- "A Saturday in December" in English -- issued to commemorate a television special aired that year. The album offers the unique experience of hearing Newman perform some of his classics in a studio with just vocal and solo piano ("Sail Away," "It's Money That I Love," "Rednecks") and others with full orchestral accompaniment ("Louisiana 1927," "Old Man," "Marie") most of which are faithful to the original studio album arrangements. Just how some of Newman's warmly sarcastic between-track asides ("..I hope you love me ladies and gentlemen, cause I love you so much..I love Paris..") made it past the French engineers working on the project remains a mystery.
Also in 1983: Australia and Holland (the country where Newman has earned a Gold record for Good Old Boys) both took this opportunity to issue a greatest hits LP, Randy Newman Retrospect (Warners 600137). An early Newman comment on his Dutch fans: "They think I hate America. How depressing." Germany issued a similar compilation in 1983, The Best Of Randy Newman (Warners 92.3996-1). An hour-long HBO special, Randy Newman Live At The Odeon was broadcast from New York in December 1983 (and repeated later on Showtime) featuring guest appearances by Linda Ronstadt and Ry Cooder. A short-lived video tape was released in 1984 (Music Video 60446); a Japanese video disk (Super Live Special SKL-29) of the concert was issued in the mid-1990's under the title Randy Newman -- Live At The Forum.