Randy Newman and Susan Morrison

Randy Newman knows that people love love songs, but he just can’t do one straight; he says his version of the classic Billy Joel tune would have gone, “I love you just the way you are, you bitch.” One of the great American lyricists, Newman talks with The New Yorker’s Susan Morrison about writing songs with characters, his respect for Kanye West, his relationship with Pixar, and the fact that he still roots against the Yankees.