ONLY THE BLUE SHADOW KNOWS: Reader Andy...

ONLY THE BLUE SHADOW KNOWS: Reader Andy Boehm wonders if the “Blue Shadows” Western ballad featured in the new John Landis comedy, “Three Amigos,” is the same “Blue Shadows on the Trail” that appeared in a 1948 Walt Disney cartoon performed by Roy Rogers and the Sons of the Pioneers. Yet the “Three Amigos” version of the song (performed during a comical campfire scene) is credited to co-scenarist Randy Newman, who wrote three new songs for the film. So what gives?

“It’s a totally different song,” Newman insisted. “After I wrote my song, someone told me about the old song--I’d never heard it before. But I dug up the sheet music from the old Disney picture. It’s a Western song too, but that’s really the only similarity. The lyrics are completely different.”

We also wondered if Newman--a self-proclaimed “lazybones” when it comes to writing new material--would be delayed even longer on making a new album since he’d taken time out to work on the “Three Amigos” script and music. “No, I’ve actually got seven or eight songs done already,” he boasted, noting that he recently previewed two new compositions, “Roll with the Punches” and “The Longest Night,” during a recent “Saturday Night Live” performance.

“But I’m still worried. I’ve written one new song that’s very disturbing. And I know that people don’t like to be disturbed, which is why I’ve been such a minimal record seller over the years. I don’t know what to make of this one myself. I write these ‘bad guy’ songs--the ones that always get me in trouble, because people confuse the character in the song with me. So I’ve done this new one about all these ‘follow the flag’ sentiments popular today. And I’m afraid people may misinterpret what I’m saying, because I don’t give any signposts. I don’t mean a word of it, but I never let on about that, which could get me in trouble.”

Newman said he enjoyed his stint as a screenwriter, though he acknowledged that songwriters have far more control over their material. “I’d do it again, because it’s fun to hear people speak words that you wrote,” he said. “But you realize that the key is often the performance, not the writing. Some of the best stuff we did never made it into the movie because it didn’t play well onscreen. The highs and lows are more pronounced when you’re writing songs by yourself. Writing a film, you don’t get quite as many highs, but then again, you don’t get the despair either. There’s nothing worse than finally writing a new song and knowing that you have to start on another one, and suddenly, you’re stuck all over again.”