Actually, "Sail Away" musically is meant to sound beatific, pastoral in that GWTW fashion. But it's a sales pitch: "In America, you'll get food to eat..."...and he paints a rosy picture, and he isn't exactly lying: Jesus, watermelons, buckwheat cake, shoes to wear...and when they "Cross the mighty ocean into Charleston Bay," it's a scenario any innocent rube could buy into, except that, of course, it's not a cruise liner but a slave ship, and it will be a long, long time before true freedom would reach the ancestors of the victims.
The same orchestral approach would be used by Newman on the next album, with "Louisiana 1927": "What has happened down here is the winds have changed" may be his ultimate act of understatement: he's really telling us about a flood that's "trying to wash us away," and yet musically, there is no doom and danger: he might as well be composing the score for KING'S ROW, GWTW, or any film of the type.
My favorite from SAIL AWAY, however, is "Dayton Ohio 1903" if only for its patent fraudulence. It begins with "Sing a song of long ago" and the salesman is there again, only this time, pitching nostalgia. It's a moving song and arrangement, if you don't think about it too much. When you do, you realize that every word COULD apply to the present if we allowed ourselves the kinds of lives and friendships that should be universal; this time, Newman relies on the same sense of nostalgia that GWTW sold decades ago but is no longer applicable (indeed, modern and younger audiences have been heard to jeer and mock the film, a rude if understandable reaction to its absurd notion about plantations and slavery being something anyone would wish to remember with fondness. Well, yeah, if you were rich and white and southern, one must suppose).
Randy's always been good at playing on our inherent likes and our inherent prejudices; the later (and his only big hit) "Short People" was so obvious it was funny rather than offensive. Like Neil Young, though, he can be challenging at times, throwing sliders amidst curves and heaters.
Although you don't have to really listen close to enjoy his music, I think it helps. "Have You Seen My Baby" (from 12 SONGS) at first sounds like only a homage to Fats Domino; listen to the words, though, and it's more than just that, and it ain't very pretty.....
And I won't even go near "God's Song," heh....
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