After a career that began at age 18 some 46 years ago, there probably aren't a lot of items left on Randy Newman's "to-do" list. But performing in Central Illinois, we're happy to report, is one of them. Or so we hope.

The interviewer has just received an itinerary of Newman's 19-city tour promoting his first album in a decade - the merrily mordant "Harps and Angels," which takes the Devil, and others, by the horns for a little musical shakedown.

The interviewer mentions that the tour is allegedly headed to Bloomington, Ind., on Oct. 9 - at least per the published schedule from the tour's Web site and publicist.

"Really?," the 64-year-old Newman observes in his trademark sandpapery voice - the one that sounds like it must have been weathered beyond repair during the New Orleans phase of his life (he lived there until age 11, then moved to Los Angeles, where he's remained).

Newman seems mildly bemused by the scheduling blooper. And he agrees that it can get confusing sometimes.

But never fear: He assures us he'll be in the right Bloomington, at the right time (7:30 p.m.), at the right venue (Bloomington Center for the Performing Arts) for what he thinks is his first-ever Central Illinois concert.

"I remember playing Northwestern University once," he says. "And Carbondale, but that's south, right?"

He even wrote an entire song called "Illinois" many years ago, but he never recorded it; instead, it wound up on an Everly Brothers album, "Roots."

He remembers writing something lyrically about "Cairo to Rockford." But not, we're sorry to report, "Normal to Bloomington," which, let's face it, has its Newman-esque possibilities.

Was it a nice song about Illinois from the poison-pen pal behind 1983's famously ambivalent "I Love L.A."?

It was a long time ago, but: "People who liked it have kept mentioning it to me," notes Newman.

Needless to say, a whole lot of people have been liking and mentioning Randy Newman's songs over the decades.

His way with a lacerating-yet-lyrical phrase has been embraced by everyone from fellow pop singers like the late Harry Nilsson (who paid tribute with an entire album of Newman songs in 1970) to the Disney-Pixar empire (Newman's consistently Oscar-nominated music has graced five of the empire's blockbusters).

He's a songwriter's songwriter, no doubt. But he's never more memorable than when it's his own sandpapery voice rubbing away at his sardonic attacks on the foibles of the world.

Flashing back to the start of his solo career, when the Nilsson album pushed him into the spotlight in a big way, he says that "both of us were sort of like a different species that didn't become homo erectus, or homo sapiens, in the rock 'n' roll world."

He continues: "It was a period when it was possible to listen to the Beatles and the Beach Boys, and hear stuff that would take you to another place. People went as far as they could, but then they backed off."

But it was fun for Newman and Nilsson while it lasted, with the latter getting points from the former for "that voice that was such a beautiful instrument - unlike me, who essentially didn't have a voice."

A debatable point, to be sure. What isn't debatable is the fact that Newman, for all his whimsical Disney-Pixar association of recent years, isn't a man who minces his lyrics for the sake of being loved or easily understood.

As a result, he's often been misread down through the decades, with the freak success of his only Top 10 solo hit, 1978's "Short People," a case in point.

Penned as a parody of all-American bigotry, with the song's narrator mocking people of modest stature, many listeners were offended because they failed to get the joke, leading to all manner of controversy and outrage directed at the author.

The new album, "Harps and Angels," takes aim at everything from America's immigration policies ("Laugh and Be Happy") to the economy ("Piece of the Pie").

But the centerpiece very well may be "A Few Words," a jaunty anthem that would be right at home in the author's acclaimed 1996 rock opera, "Randy Newman's Faust," in which Newman himself took the role of Satan on the album version.

It's a scathing critique of wrong-way American hegemony ("now the leaders we have, while they're the worse that we've had, are hardly the worst the world has ever seen … take the Caesars, for example …") that also makes a case for the good Americans who don't agree with that hegemony ("just a few words in defense of our country whose people aren't bad nor are they mean … whose time at the top could be coming to an end … ").

Newman admits that his role on "Harps and Angels" "is a good deal closer to me being the first person or the protagonist of a lot of the songs - or a slightly more defective version of myself."

By "defective," he says he means that he knows that, in real life, he's not down and out and suffering economic straits like the protagonist of, say, "A Piece of the Pie."

"Myself, I guess I'm rich, although not by today's standards. But it isn't like I'm struggling either. So it would be hypocritical and a lie for me to say otherwise."

Thus, the "slightly defective" narrator, who, at heart and soul, if not paycheck, is still Randy Newman.

When he takes to the stage of the Bloomington (Ill.!) Center for the Performing Arts next weekend, he says he'll be doing so sans any creative defects, he assures us.

"Actually, I think I'm getting better a little bit lyrically," he says. "Or maybe it's that I don't think I'm writing worser."

Whatever, he adds, "I don't think I'm in a decline, which is always good."

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Naming Newmans

Match these memorable snippets of Randy Newman's lyrics with their appropriate song title:

The words

1. Look at that mountain, look at those trees, look at that bum over there, man, he's down on his knees

2. They got little cars that go beep, beep, beep; they got little voices goin' peep, peep, peep

3. Ain't no lions or tigers, ain't no mamba snake, just the sweet watermelon and the buckwheat cake

4. If you've got troubles, I've got 'em too, there isn't anything I wouldn't do for you

5. They're tryin' to wash us away, they're tryin' to wash us away

6. This is the wildest party that there ever could be; oh, don't turn on the light 'cause I don't want to see

7. When I was a young boy, maybe 13, I took a hard look around me and asked what does it mean?

8. I'm just a punky little eyeball, and a funky optic nerve

The titles

A. "Short People"

B. "Mama Told Me Not to Come"

C. "Sail Away"

D. "If I Didn't Have You"

E. "I Love L.A."

F. "Louisiana 1927"

G. "It's Money That Matters"

H. "You've Got a Friend in Me"

Answers

1. E; 2. A; 3. C; 4. H; 5. F; 6. B; 7. G; 8. D

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Believe it not …

Some amazing-but-true facts from the life and times of America's most mordant pop muse:

• He's only recorded 13 albums over 40 years!

• He's scored more Oscar nominations (17) than any other living pop songwriter!

• His only top 10 hit as a singer was "Short People" in 1978!

• His biggest hit song ever recorded by someone else was "Mama Told Me Not to Come," a No. 1 smash for Three Dog Night in 1970!

• His first film score was for a forgotten Bob Newhart movie released 37 years ago (1971's "Cold Turkey")!

• He's only one-seventh of the Newman family's extended clan of composers (uncles Alfred, Lionel, Emil; cousins Thomas, David; nephew Joey)!

• His parody of bigots, "Short People," was so misunderstood that legislation was introduced in the state of Maryland to make the song illegal for radio broadcast (the bill failed)!

• In the album version of his 1996 musical, "Randy Newman's Faust," James Taylor played God and RN played - guess who (the Devil)!

• "Louisiana 1927," his song about New Orleans' devastation by a hurricane flood and the government's inept response, was written 30 years before Hurricane Katrina!

• He's scored more computer-animated films than anyone else, all for Pixar ("Toy Story," "Toy Story 2," "Monsters, Inc.," "A Bug's Life," "Cars")

• In addition to his Oscar-winning film composer career, he co-wrote the script for the Steve Martin-Chevy Chase comedy, "Three Amigos" (we forgive you, Randy)!

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At a glance

What: An Evening with Randy Newman

When: 7:30 p.m. Oct. 9

Where: Bloomington Center for the Performing Arts, 110 E. Mulberry St., Bloomington

Tickets: $36.50 to $42.50

Box office number: (866) 686-9541