Look at the light coming over me
show me a man whos gentle and kind
and I'll show you a loser
now, show me a man who takes what he wants
ohhhhhhhhh how exciting
ohhhhhhhhh how exciting
so the poet sings

when you're a fool in love
and nothing goes the way you plan
and no one cares and no one understands
that you're a fool and you're in love
never another spring for you,

Tell me doctor, where are we goin this time?
Is this the fifties, or 1999?
All I wanted to do.....
Was play my guitar and sing......
So take me away!
I don't mind!
But you better promise me
I'll be back in time!
Gotta get back in time!
Don't bet your future,
On one roll of the dice,
You better remember,
Lightning never strikes twice!
Please don't drive in it!

Out among the stars I sail,
Way beyond the moon.
In my silver ship I sail,
A dream that ended too soon.
Now I know exactly who I am
And what I'm here for.
And I will go sailing no more.

All the things I thought I'd be,
All the brave things I've done.
Vanish like a snowflake
With the rising of the sun.
Never more to sail my ship
Were no man has gone before.

I do want everyone to like me. That's why people get into show business. There have been times in my life where I wondered whether I was saying things I really thought or felt or meant, or whether I was saying things to make people like me. I first started worrying about it when I was in the sixth grade, and I still don't know the answer.

Something in me can't be straight about romance. I don't completely mean this song - I'm not going to move up next door to my first wife, who lives in Idaho. This one reminds me of that Neil Young song, "Look Out for My Love," which says, "it's in your neighborhood," like, beware. But "I Miss You" is genuine. I love my ex-wife.

Musically, this one has a sort of overblown, heavenly quality to it. But lyrically, it's another story of a guy getting himself into a bad relationship that he can't get out of.

Since I was a child
I've tried to be what I'm not
I've lied and I've enjoyed it all my life
I lied to my dear mother
to my sisters and my brother
and now I'm lying to my children and my wife
Big Hat, no cattle
Big head, no brain
Big snake, no rattle
I forever remain
big hat, no cattle
I knew from the start
Big boat, no paddle
Big belly, no heart

Can't remember why I do it,

You've got to learn to get to know the one you love.
To anticipate her ev'ry move,
you got to know exactly what she's thinking of.
She may be hungry but she won't say.
You better get a burger or something in her right away.
If you don't, you're gonna pay
at the hand of the one you love.
(The one you love, the one you love.)

Young man, you're running free, you're running wild.

I read a book by Alfred Crosby called European Ecological Imperialism. It sounds awful, but it was great. It was about how everywhere Europeans went in the world, their diseases came along with them and killed the native peoples. "They got TB and typhoid and athlete's foot/ Diphtheria and the flu." They got all of them.

Michael Jackson's people called me to write a song for him, and this was it, though he didn't record it. It's really the type of song I don't write - a straightforward love song. But I'm glad I get a chance to get out of myself a little bit and do something like this. It wouldn't surprise me if "Every Time It Rains" were the easiest to take for people who've never heard me before.

All these baby-boomer musicians are out there, and no one's leaving the stage. We're able to stick around because there's this big bulge of 52-year-olds in the population. People are still sort of interested in Joni Mitchell and Bob Dylan and me. But it's only because there's so many of us. Until we start to die off, there's going to be this giant cloud hanging over the rest of the population.

Let's go back to yesterday,
when a phone call cost a dime.
in New Orleans, just a nickel.
Turn back the hands of time.
Turn back the hands of time.

Picture a room with a window,
a sofa and some chairs,
a television turned on for the night.

Picture a woman,
two children seated,
a man lying there,
their faces softly glowing in the light.

This is my country,
these are my people.

This is a World War I song. World War I fascinates me because it was such a shock to the world. Nothing before or since has come close. It was a horrible, horrible event. It was modern weaponry and cavalry and then tanks. They fought for four years over a hundred yards, some ridiculously small amount of ground. It's the stupidest event in history.

When Karl Marx was a boy
he took a hard look around
He saw people were starving all over the place
while others were painting the town
The public spirited boy
became a public spirited man
So he worked very hard and he read everything

That's from the point of view of some old spider in New Orleans who throws all dignity to the wind in pursuit of some 19-year-old girl, with 19-year-old skin. I love the idea of the power that young, beautiful people have, the power to crush and maim and destroy. People with all the money in the world, all the power in the world - and some 19-year-old can rip 'em up. We can be made helpless.

Short People
Randy Newman

Short People got no reason
Short People got no reason
Short People got no reason
To live

They got little hands
And little eyes
And they walk around
Tellin' great big lies
They got little noses
And tiny little teeth
They wear platform shoes
On their nasty little fett

Well, I don't want no Short People
Don't want no Short People

I was born right here, November '43
My dad was a captain in the army
Fighting the Germans in Sicily.
My poor little momma
Didn't know a soul in L.A.
So we went down to the Union Station and made our getaway.
Got on the Dixie Flyer bound for New Orleans
Across the state of Texas to the land of dreams.
On the Dixie Flyer bound for New Orleans