randy newman, “lonely at the top”
from: sail away, 1972
“I’ve been around the world
Had my pick of any girl
You’d think I’d be happy
But I’m not
Ev’rybody knows my name
But it’s just a crazy game
Oh, it’s lonely at the top
Listen to the band, they’re playing just for me
Listen to the people paying just for me
All the applause-all the parades
And all the money I have made
Oh, it’s lonely at the top
Listen all you fools out there
Go on and love me-I don’t care
Oh, it’s lonely at the top
Oh, it’s lonely at the top”
The scuttlebut surrounding this tune is that being label mates at Reprise Records, and as the new songwriting savant on the horizon, at only 27, Randy Newman was ushered in to come up with an applicable number for Frank Sinatra. Here’s more detail from some recent research.
“It's hard to say then if Newman wrote "Lonely at the Top" to take the piss out of the grandiose "My Way," or tweak the persona of the lone romantic, but a studio session was soon arranged for Newman to play Sinatra the song. Unlike "My Way," with its phony tough-guy platitudes, "Lonely at the Top" is a biting examination of the romantically fatalistic figure Frank Sinatra had spent a career creating. Sinatra pressed himself quietly against a studio wall while Newman crouched over the piano and slowly began to sing. As a piece of music, "Lonely at the Top" was your basic ragtime ballad, but the lyrics – spoken in the first person – were something quite peculiar. Not only did the song subtly mock the persona Sinatra had spent his career creating, it also caricatured the life and career of Newman himself: "I've been all around the world, had my pick of any girl," sang the unworldly Newman in his customary low drawl. "You think I'd be happy, but I'm not." Ol' Blue Eyes stood attentively trying to measure the meaning of this odd little ditty, while Newman continued his sly deconstruction of the Sinatra persona: "Everybody knows my name, but it's just a crazy game. Oh, it's lonely at the top." Could this clown be serious? Sinatra no doubt wondered. In all likelihood, Newman had already lost his big chance for a hit record, and by the song's conclusion, the jig was definitely up – "Listen all you fools out there/Go on and love me – I don't care/Oh, it's lonely at the top." Without saying a word, Sinatra left the studio having made it perfectly clear there would be no hit song coming from Randy Newman.”
-Kevin Courrier-
Mr. Marcus
““Laconic, funny, grim, and solitary...Randy Newman is a typical figure in the American tradition: The man who does not like what he sees but is wildly attracted to it anyway, a man who keeps his sanity by rendering contradictions other people struggle to avoid.”.”