This is the third song from the great concept album, “Randy Newman’s Faust”, which features James Taylor, as God, explaining how things work in heaven to an adoring heavenly choir. Premise based on the classic story of the man who sells his soul to the Devil in exchange for success, update in Newman’s version to a young man who wants to be a rock star.
James Taylor is God, Randy Newman voices the Devil, Don Henley, the shallow Faust, Bonnie Raitt is Martha, Linda Ronstadt is Margaret, and Elton John is “Angel Rick” (don’t ask).
In the song, God sings:
Sorry ladies, to make you wait
There’s a couple of Buddhists at the Pearly Gate,
Asked my permission to come on board,
“What’d you do, Lord?” (sings the choir)
I had to have them put out with the trash.
Sing it!
“Oh Lord,
How Great our Lord!”
Somewhat blasphemous, but what do you expect from Randy Newman?
When this album came out I was working at Tingstol. They had purchased a building in Elk Grove Village, not far from where I work now, and had begun moving the business from the Northside of Chicago, Fullerton and Southport, to it.
I remember driving with my friends (now at Tingstol as well) Oscar S. and Rich Mankiewicz (see RIP-Rich Mankiewicz -July 2012) in my 1984 Toyota Celica hatchback with 150,000+ miles on it, from the plant on Fullerton to the new plant, with my cassette copy of the album playing.
Oscar didn’t find it as amusing as Rich did, Rich being an agnostic, at best.
I was pretty much the first office employee to move to the new building as the equipment was set up. As the Quality Engineer, it was my job to do process capability studies on each machine as it came on line. Also, Elk Grove is about ½ the drive as compared to the drive to the Fullerton plant.
However, the longer drive was somewhat offset by the nearby restaurants on Fullerton: Stefani’s, Hoghead McDunna’s, and an excellent Thai buffet were just a few of the great eats available.
Also, working in the city allowed me to drive to several nearby bookstores at lunchtime, when I needed to get away for a while.
A year or so later, the Goodman Theater in Chicago mounted a version of “Randy Newman’s Faust” that I dragged Lynn to (though Lynn does like a lot of Randy Newman’s work generally) that starred David Garrison (Steve, the first husband of Marcy, the Bundy’s neighbor on “Married…with Children”) as the Devil. The other parts were taken by local talent.
Don Henley, Bonnie Raitt, James Taylor, and Linda Ronstadt probably wanted too much, I imagine.
Or maybe it was a lack of dancing skills since this was an all singing, all dancing version. Though the thought of James Taylor loping about the stage does sound entertaining.
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