“Political Science” by Randy Newman

Randy Newman is at the piano for "Political Science", a satire from his 1972 album Sail Away that takes aim at American foreign policy of the day, in step with the rest of the record. He wrote it, arranged it and sings it, playing a jingoistic narrator who surveys the world and decides the fix is to drop the bomb.

Newman later said he didn't want to write many songs like it: he loved Tom Lehrer, but he didn't want to be written off as a novelty act. Russ Titelman and Lenny Waronker produced it for Reprise. He played it on The Old Grey Whistle Test in 1972, it closed out the 1999 film Blast from the Past, and he recut it for The Randy Newman Songbook Vol. 1 in 2003.

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