Newman’s won Oscars for his soundtrack work, but it’s his sardonic songs—often written from the perspective of an unreliable narrator—that have made him one of America’s most celebrated songwriters. Here, the creator of “Sail Away” and “Rednecks” shines with a merciless portrait of Russia’s Vladimir Putin and “She Chose Me” a tender song for his wife. There’s also a heartbreaking ballad, “Wandering Boy,” about a father pining for his estranged son. The standout is “The Great Debate,” a devastatingly funny eight-minute mini-musical in which he pits quantum mechanics and astrophysicists in an arena against Presbyterians and Episcopalians to determine whether science o...
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