"Once a man's 30, he's already old," Goethe observed in Faust. "He is indeed as good as dead. It's best to kill him right away."
Randy Newman, 51, has long since trumped Goethe by writing and performing some of the best songs in contemporary American pop: Sail Away, Take Me Back, Dixie Flyer, Rednecks, Mr. President (Have Pity on the Working Man), Rollin', I Think It's Going to Rain Today. Now he's trying to beat one of the world's best poets at his own game by writing a contemporary Faust as a ferocious musical Valentine to temptation, damnation, redemption and the...
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