ALBUM: ‘Little Criminals’ (1977) ‘I Love L.A. promotional EP (1983)
MVC Rating:Criminals 4.0/$$; LA 4.0./$$
I recognize the talent, the barrel-roll piano playing, the sardonic voice, the intelligent if not overly ironic lyrics illustrated by his biggest all time hit ‘Short People.’
Sure it was a send-up of prejudice and discrimination, sung from the point of view of a narrator so over the top that you couldn’t believe the singer was for real. Could you
Some people did. I would say get over yourself. But I found myself disliking this song because in 1977 it shot to No. 2 on Billboard and the refrain “Don’t need no short people round here” was always on the radio.
I thought it was funny at first but some of my best friends were short people. I came to a point where I disliked the song. I do agree with Randy Newman’s take in which Wikipedia reports he said:: “I had no idea that there was any sensitivity, I mean, that anyone could believe that anyone was as crazy as that character. To have that kind of animus against short people, and then to sing it and put it all in song and have a philosophy on it.”[
But Newman is good at what he does. having written some good songs. On this album I particularly like ‘Baltimore’ and ‘Dixie Flyer.’ I also have a single of ‘I Love LA’ — another song where you can’t take the words at face value.
Satire is funny. Satire is mean. Sometimes satire is funny because it’s mean. I get that. We get to make a choice about whether it’s funny or not and why or why not.