Songfacts®:

• Filled with Broken windows, frozen smiles and a pale dead moon, this is one of the more dispiriting Randy Newman songs. Newman can conjure up just about any feeling for a song, so they don't reflect his mental or emotional state. Looking back on the track in a 2017 interview with Rolling Stone, he expressed some regrets over the lyric.
  
  "The music is emotional - even beautiful - and the lyrics are not," he said. "The honest truth is the song bothered me because of the darkness - it felt sophomoric, too maudlin."
• Newman included this on his self-titled debut album. He had made a name for himself as a songwriter, placing tracks with Jerry Butler ("I Don't Want To Hear Anymore"), Gene Pitney ("Just One Smile") and many others. He seemed primed for success as a solo artist, but the album tanked. He remained a successful songwriter, but didn't have a solo hit until "Short People" in 1977.
• Judy Collins, Bobby Darin, Rick Nelson, Dusty Springfield, Claudine Longet, Peggy Lee, Neil Diamond and Nina Simone are among the many artists to cover this song. Barbra Streisand recorded it in 1970 for her album Stoney End, but it didn't make the cut. This outtake, with Newman on piano, was finally released in 2012 on Streisand's album Release Me.