IT'S BETTER THAN DRINKIN' ALONE: The Official ILM Track-by-Track BILLY JOEL Listening Thread

so many people to blame for that song and that arrangement. billy. his band. america. the 1970s. eric clapton. the rolling stones. possibly gerald ford.

fantastic post, dr. c. they were a good band.

Billy Joel aboard his private jet during the U.S. leg of his 1978 world tour pic.twitter.com/PmrpRMJOqV

— Barney Hurley (@barneyhurley1) April 28, 2021

wowww

He looks like a... big shot

workin too hard can give you a heart attackackackack

Looks like the perfect place to try heroin for the first time.

So you put your feet up
On the airplane seat
You've got your shades on
And your hat is sweet
But Captain Jack will get ya high tonight

so, way upthread i tried in vain to make sense of the chronology of "Scenes from an Italian Restaurant," wherein Brenda and Eddie start dating in the time of "the greasers" but do not get married until "the summer of '75," after which things break up astonishingly quickly. like what the hell. SO: new hot theory: billy first tried to write it with brenda and eddie still goin' steady in the summer of *65* --- iow they are married for ten years before they've "had it already" --- and just couldn't find the padding syllable to make it scan right. by the time of "keeping the faith" he was willing to just go CHEV UH RO LAY but here at least his gumption failed him on "summer of six uh tee five."

that's my theory and i'm stickin' to it

Maybe by "the greasers" he meant Sha Na Na.

Billy tried to warn us about Greased Lightning, but no one listened.

Brenda and Eddie were the popular steadies
And the king and the queen of the original off-Broadway production of Grease

You mean Brender

That's all I heard about Brenda Rinetti
Though I believe she went on to some small film roles
Before transitioning to production design

can’t tell if people are making up BJ lyrics now

Billy is large; he contains multitudes

the intense bar-band-prog of "Angry Young Man"'s instrumental sections

Perfect description!

Happy Birthday to Billy Joel who turns 72 years young today pic.twitter.com/i06IwGKxMX

— Barney Hurley (@barneyhurley1) May 8, 2021

His birthday is tomorrow.

Barney does get his facts wrong from time to time…

What is BJ trying to do in the vocal of "Uptown Girl?" He sings it in this strained artificial voice at the top of his register and really overpronounces his r's and while this makes no sense at all I feel like he sounds like Neil Young?

I just figured he was going for Frankie Valli... right?

yep, Four Seasons all the way

The whole album is homage to different artists - the Wiki page mentions which ones: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/An_Innocent_Man

BJ: “I need a title for my new album full of bubble gum pop songs about serious topics like economic depression in middle America and the horrific legacy of the vietnam war.”
Phil Ramone: “Hmm…”
BJ: “I’m thinking…’Shower Curtain.’”
PR: “Ok…”
BJ: “Or maybe ‘Nylon Curtain’”
PR: “Better”

The closing song, "Where's The Orchestra?", is about a man who goes to see a live play expecting a musical, only to realize that it's a regular stage show; according to Joel, this is a metaphor for life.

yeah i never really "got" the Nylon Curtain title. like it's a pun on "Iron Curtain" but what does it signify? like, everyday consumer goods? it's not like the album's "about" that altho maybe if you really squint you could get there. is it in reference to women's hosiery specifically? that would work with an Adult Album About Relationships Or Divorce Or Something (see "Imperial Bedroom"), but not so much Vietnam and Allentown. shower curtains present the same problem. maybe he should have just called it Bored In The USA.

Hey hey!: https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/billy-joel-the-stranger/

Across seven and a half minutes, Joel tells the superbly ordinary tale of Brenda and Eddie, high school sweethearts turned divorcées reuniting for dinner.

Oh boy. Here we go again with this one.

and here we are waving Brent DiCrescenzo goodbye

a good writeup, btw!

re: YMP's long post way upthread on first vs third-person singer-songwriter modes re: "Piano Man":

(...) No one asks Levon Helm whether he was actually present during the Civil War. But if he sang a song about being in a band or losing a woman, we'd naturally assume he was Speaking From the Heart.

All of that is a really long and completely pointless introduction to my thoughts about "Piano Man."

The song would be okay in third person (like "Angry Young Man" is).

But in my view it's untenable in first person because it's so self-flattering. "I, the artist, float above this human misery. And by the way everyone loves me because I make them so happy. And, further, I am so awesome that people are surprised that I am doing this instead of being the global superstar I was clearly meant to be."

Which might be true, but it is so douchey to say out loud that I cannot stand to hear it said, and I will change the radio station when this song comes on, despite it being the signature song of an artist I generally either love or tolerate.

I really like the argument, but trying to hear it in my head as "And they sit at the bar, and put bread in his jar," I'm not sure it works as a song. Slides into the late-60s hippie-influenced "I've noticed this regular, everyday person, doing their job --- oh how very fascinating" school of songwriting. Maybe second-person would work? "There's an old man sitting next to you..." Like a dungeon master setting the scene. "The manager gives you a smile."

yeah i never really "got" the Nylon Curtain title. like it's a pun on "Iron Curtain" but what does it signify? like, everyday consumer goods?

For me I always read it as "Nylon" signifying, yeah, general 70s US suburban life, and "Nylon Curtain" meaning, hey, that life which is presented as an aspirational dream feels in certain ways like an oppressive regime in which real communication is dangerous and difficult

As for YMP's post, I think a certain amount of direct "damn aren't I great" is part of BJ's vibe, always has been, can't really be unwound from the rest of the vibe, we all have friends who are kind of like this and I accept it from him as I do from those friends

nylon curtain just makes me think of shower curtains :/

the shittiest windows tend to have nylon curtains

#onethread

If he had someone else as a lyricist and a better producer handling his more ambitious records, Joel's music might be a lot more palatable. He can come up with a good tune and would've been perfect for a songwriting partnership in Tin Pan Alley, but as a recording artist, he's a thoroughly shitty.

*he's thoroughly shitty

Dr C

I really like the argument, but trying to hear it in my head as "And they sit at the bar, and put bread in his jar," I'm not sure it works as a song. Slides into the late-60s hippie-influenced "I've noticed this regular, everyday person, doing their job --- oh how very fascinating" school of songwriting.

Joni has that exact song ("For Free") and there's "Killing me Softly."

I hasten to note that I am certainly not recommending the song be recast in third person. Just that the self-flattery is offputting. I wonder if we've ever done the category of "artists you generally like, but you hate their most famous song" or something like it.

Oh crud, it looks like I did say it would be okay in third person. Fuck. In that case, I retract that sentiment.

I don't like many of his songs, but his secret weapon is his ability to mimic the qualities of better, more interesting songwriters. He has a deep understanding of the melodic and harmonic peculiarities of McCartney, Elton, Becker/Fagen, etc. It's still pastiche, but of a high quality (except his lyrics, where his individual sensibility holds sway).

I don't like many of his songs, but his secret weapon is his ability to mimic the qualities of better, more interesting songwriters. He has a deep understanding of the melodic and harmonic peculiarities of McCartney, Elton, Becker/Fagen, etc. It's still pastiche, but of a high quality (except his lyrics, where his individual sensibility holds sway).

Yeah, that really stood out the last time I gave him a chance. It's generally on the cusp between hackwork and enjoyable pastiche, so sometimes it works and sometimes it's really off-putting. Off the top of my head, there's the "Be My Baby" intro where I guess he basically realized "this would work great as the basis for a WHOLE song," there was a Yes-like keyboards on one number, some shoddy attempt at Beatles harmonies on another, a thick-headed New Wave parody that was at least rhythmically catchy...all hits. I'm reluctant to call it artistry because even when it works, it's not done particularly well. I feel like that approach defines him as an artist and not just the way he composes his songs. His Vietnam hit, which starts off like "Apocalypse Now" with the slowed down helicopters, is flat out awful. Well-meaning but it feels like it's written by a guy who never paid much attention to Vietnam until he watched a few Hollywood movies.

Definitely stole the "As sharp as KNIVES, KNIVES, Knives, Knives, knives..." part from Ozzy.

one of the major discoveries of the listening thread for me was just how consistently and i think proudly Billy understood himself as a pastiche artist. so many quotes about how with song X, he was trying to do a song like so-and-so would write. it's what he's good at!

"Killing Me Softly" is an interesting comparison! Maybe more like "Piano Man" from the point of view of Paul, the real-estate novelist. Good songwriting challenge.

as a kid I always clearly understood that Piano Man was about a crew of deadends wasting their lives in a bar, and that the singer absolutely knew he was one of them. “Man, what are you doing here?” It’s a song of self loathing and camaraderie with the burnouts.
Also the Nylon Curtain came out at the height of the Cold War (or at least time time I was most aware of it, aged 13?) and the title clearly referenced the unexamined repression of “free” suburban America.
There are many things that suck about Joel but not those.

STOP LIGHTING THE AUDIENCE

as i mused above, i buy "nylon curtain" = unhappy suburban America. i think the issue is just that the album isn't really focused on that theme. if i just accept that it's not the concept album or statement-piece Billy imagined it as, then the title is just as good or bad as the others.

Definitely stole the "As sharp as KNIVES, KNIVES, Knives, Knives, knives..." part from Ozzy.

lol, never made this connection before

matttkkk otm
as a kid I always clearly understood that Piano Man was about a crew of deadends wasting their lives in a bar, and that the singer absolutely knew he was one of them. “Man, what are you doing here?” It’s a song of self loathing and camaraderie with the burnouts.

my take is v similar, except that i see that line “they sit at the bar, put bread in my jar & say man what are you doin here” = the only difference is he is the burnout getting paid

i never felt like he thought he was better than them. i think that’s just mis-projecting the arrogance displayed elsewhere onto this song, where i find it absent?

its ok to hate this song, just give me better reasons for it ffs (jk)

yeah the chorus is clearly self-mocking, but like any rousing singalong it immediately gets cheered up into a positive statement (cf Born in the USA)