Okay kids, time for a pop quiz. Who said, “Let’s drop the big one and see what happens?” Was it Dick Cheney giving advice to George Bush? Very possibly, but if you answered Randy Newman, collect your gold star and move to the head of the class.

Simply put, Randy Newman belongs on any list of the great songwriters of the past 40 years. But despite releasing a slew of terrific great albums and getting nominated for the Academy Award 17 times, few people know his name. Newman turns 65 this year and he’s just released his first album of original songs in nine years, Harps and Angels. Like his previous albums, it won’t be topping sales charts anywhere in the world. He won’t be doing a triumphant tour selling out football stadiums around the world. But it deserves to be heard by anyone who appreciates a well crafted song, sardonic lyrics and inventive arrangements.

Newman was born in Los Angeles in 1943 to a musical family. Three of his uncles (Alfred, Lionel and Emil Newman) were successful composers for Hollywood films and you can hear that influence in the unique orchestral arrangements that often accompany his songs.

For most of the 1960s, Newman toiled away as a relatively successful songwriter. In 1968, he released his first album, simply titled Randy Newman, and I suspect that it sold about 10 copies. The problem wasn’t the songs or the arrangements. To put it mildly, his singing is an acquired taste. Randy Newman’s nasal, mumbly voice makes Bob Dylan sound like Luciano Pavarotti.

Bad voice or not, Newman’s songs started attracting more attention. After ex-Animal Alan Price included seven Randy Newman songs on one album (and had a hit in the UK with his cover of Simon Smith and His Amazing Dancing Bear), Harry Nilsson recorded an entire album of Newman’s songs, inventively titled Nilsson Sings Newman. That album was a critical smash and a modest commercial hit.

His second album, 12 Songs, had more of a rocking sound and included the song, Mama Told Me Not to Come, which of course became a huge hit for Three Dog Night. Newman’s original version is better for many reasons, not the least being that it features Ry Cooder and Clarence White on guitars.

Sail Away, released in 1972, is now recognized as a classic, and not just because it included the original version of You Can Leave Your Hat On. The 1970s was the era of the overly sincere singer-songwriter but Newman turned that stereotype upside down. Instead of introspective lyrics about teenage angst, he often wrote from the point of view of fictional characters, first person confessionals from lunatics and racists. So the title song of Sail Away is sung by a slave trader trying to convince Africans they’ll enjoy the American dream if they just get on board his ship. Political Science, the song quoted at the top of this column, is sung by someone who is basically saying, well, if the world hates the United States, let’s bomb everyone back into the Stone Age. The album closed with God’s Song which was sung by God himself, letting mankind know, “How we laugh up here in heaven at the prayers you offer me.”

In 1974, he surpassed Sail Away with Good Old Boys, an album that focused on the American South. The first track, Rednecks, had a chorus in which he almost gleefully sang, “we don’t know our ass from a hole in the ground” but the second half of the song made the point that there was plenty of racism to be found in the so-called liberal North. The album also contains Newman’s greatest ballad, Guilty.

Newman had his biggest hit with Short People in 1977 and 1983’s I Love L.A. somehow got the unphotogenic Newman into heavy rotation on MTV. But by the 80s, pop songs became an occasional side project because he began to primarily compose for the movies. He’s composed the scores for more than 20 films, including Ragtime, The Natural, Toy Story (1,2 and soon, 3), Cars, Meet the Parents, the list goes on. His scores and original songs brought him a fistful of Academy Award nominations, and he brought an Oscar home in 2002, with the song If I Didn’t Have You, from Monsters, Inc.

On the pop music front, Newman released only two albums in the 80s and another two in the 90s. And up until now, the only release we had in this decade was The Randy Newman Songbook Vol. 1 – re-recordings of 18 of his best songs and movie themes, this time featuring just his voice and piano.

So I was caught completely off-guard when I wandered into a record store last week and found a new album by him, Harps and Angels. Even though I hadn’t heard a single song, even though I hadn’t read anything about it, I bought it without a moment’s hesitation. But it took a couple of days before I worked up the courage to actually listen to it. I wasn’t expecting another slice of Good Old Boys greatness but I was hoping it wouldn’t be another Faust – a concept album probably best forgotten. After nine years, just 10 songs, less than 35 minutes long?

Fortunately, Harps and Angels represents a return to the Newman that at least some of us know and love. Musically, many of these songs sound like they come from soundtracks. If you don’t pay attention to the lyrics, even the darker songs sound like jaunty little ditties from family friendly films. It’s the lyrics, sometimes tender, sometimes mean spirited, often hilarious, that set him apart.

The song that will attract the most attention is titled, A Few Words in Defense of Our Country. Newman starts it off by reminding us, “Now the leaders we have, while they’re the worst that we’ve had, are hardly the worst this poor world has ever seen.” But after name checking Caesar, Hitler, Stalin and even King Leopold of Belgium, he tears into Bush and the Supreme Court, before finally announcing that “this empire is ending.” America doesn’t need your respect, he tells us, but it sure could use a friend.

He’s equally angry on A Piece of the Pie – “Jesus Christ it stinks here high and low, the rich are getting richer, I should know” - while Easy Street reminds us that you can get away with anything as long as you’re rich. And I’m sure some people will have a field day with Korean Parents – “You really think they’re smarter than you are, they just work their asses off.”

These political songs sit side by side with songs about old age and death (“God bless the potholes down on memory lane, everything that happens to me now is consigned to oblivion by my brain”) along with two relatively straight forward ballads, Losing You and Feels Like Home, that are certain to be covered by far better singers in the future.

Let’s face it, some of our greatest songwriters wouldn’t stand a chance on American Idol. Bob Dylan, Leonard Cohen, Lou Reed, hell even Burt Bacharach would never get past Simon Cowell. But for me, a great singer isn’t necessarily someone who sings in tune, it’s someone who understands the lyrics and is using the song to communicate more than just, “look at me, I’m wonderful.” So even if Randy Newman’s voice is on a par with William Hung’s, even as it redefines the term “acquired taste,” I’ll take 35 minutes of Randy Newman singing songs that actually mean something over even five seconds of Mariah Carey’s melismatic nonsense.