Randy Newman: The Essential Album Guide

12 SONGS (1970)
Key Tracks: "Let's Burn Down the Cornfield," "Have You Seen My Baby?"
Quick Take: 12 Songs is where Newman got loose as a rock & roller, ditching the complex orchestrations for a bluesy, easy-swinging satire of America as a land of lonely gas-station attendants ("If You Need Oil"), desperate cuckolds ("Have You Seen My Baby?"), psychopaths ("Suzanne"), cranks ("Uncle Bob's Midnight Blues"), and bigots (a twisted cover of the '30s chestnut "Underneath the Harlem Moon"). The only folks on the album who escape the alienation long enough to have fun are in "Let's Burn Down the Cornfield," the tale of two sexy young pyromaniacs in love.

12 Songs (Reprise)