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

Like Turn Around much better than the last few. I wonder if our hero BJ was listening to Tumbleweed Connection from 1970? Not too many others doing piano ballads. Maybe Tapestry? That also came out in 1971. Anyway, I'm a sucker for pedal steel so good on Billy for having Sneaky Pete add a nice new element.

I think I like Turn Around, or maybe I just like the texture and sound of stuff like this. It's the kind of thing I'd expect to add to my AM Gold playlist after stumbling on it through Spotify radio, credited to some earnest-looking guy you never heard of - let's call him Joel Williams. Again, not super memorable lyrically. I really wonder whose idea the guitar part was; it was a very commercial sound at that date (c.f. George Harrison, "Teach Your Children" etc.) and I can imagine the song coming in the door as a "She's Got A Way" solo item.

You Look So Good To Me: another sonic turn! Billy dusts off his Hammond organ, ripped free from whatever amplification was beefing it up to Attila size, and lays down a jaunty, sunshiney little love song. Harmonica, too! Credit watch: This is another one with Denny Seiwell, session drummer and future short-flying Wing, in between Ram and Wild Life.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oMr5e60PX64

That, again, is a pitch correction by TheZestanor. The later remix is, to my ears, far too punchy and FM-ready, losing that slightly-hazy early 70s bubblegum sensibility. I cannot confirm that Joel ever performed this song live; if so he didn't do it much. Presumably, the arrangement's double-duty of piano and organ posed some difficulties, and certainly you're not going to schlep the organ around on tour if you're not using it for much...!

turn around - yup i hear the allman bros and elton things here, but more than anything i hear james taylor, in both musical and lyrical structure. he doesn't have the lyrical chops for that, not yet, not by a mile. but the music is, yeah, AM gold, and the change into the chorus is nice.

you look so good to me - i hear a really good idea for a song for exactly 12 seconds -- the organ intro and the "aah you look so good to me" melody -- followed by another 2 mins and 15 secs of trying to figure out what to do with that idea and not coming up with anything.

Sounds like Nilsson to me!

Interesting 1978 Rolling Stone piece by Dave Marsh

this is great (save for the parts where marsh tries to marshsplain what "rock" is).

i'm not so sure of marsh's assessment of the first hassles album ("something of an obscure classic"). i i don't think anybody ever actually thought that, not in 1971, not in 1978, not now. and i'm not so sure of billy's self assessment that "I'm one of the most self-contented, happiest people," but then again marsh doesn't seem to buy it either. and as a relatively early portrait of who exactly our billy is, it seems pretty spot-on.

The main hooks of "You Look So Good To Me" deserve a more focused and memorable song imo. As with "Turn Around," I like the sound - which suggests a mild and pleasant little sitcom theme - more than the song.

A Billy Joel song for a sitcom theme, ha! Not on my life!

Pleasant but inessential, now I can't help seeing freeze frame 70s opening sitcom montage playing against it

Boring song.

Tomorrow is Today, track eight on Cold Spring Harbor, takes us back to a man and his piano, before taking some surprise turns. Discogs defies Wiki and confirms that this was indeed released as a single sometime in 1972 (chopped down to 3:25, sometimes misspelled as "Tomorow," and backed, again, with "Everybody Loves You Now"). Evidently, it did not chart, and I can't actually find the single edit online.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XY1y2jLJjIU

Despite TheZestanor's scratchy source, I'd recommend listening to that pitch-corrected version first, then checking out the 1983 remix. The latter, by stripping out everything but Billy and the keys, does much better by the prettiness of the melody (which now seems to prefigure McCartney's "Warm and Beautiful") - but it's a very radical change and we're sort of in Let It Be... Naked territory. As a compromise, fans might again consider the 1972 Sigma Sound performance, which fills out the space in the arrangement in a different fashion while giving you a lot more clarity than the LP.

wow. I find this one quite beautiful.

A very lovely melody, sometimes feeling a little too upbeat on a set of genuinely quite personal lyrics that describe major depression - days that run together, nothing to look forward to in a tomorrow. Like "Second Wind" many years later, this is directly related to Joel's own attempted suicide in 1970; apparently, he's stated that the lyrics here are derived from his suicide note. With that in mind, for once I actually prefer the more stripped later arrangement to the orchestral overdubs, which seem totally indifferent to what the song is actually about and are just riding the sense that, hey, it's the end of the song, there should be a big swelling climax here. But even his live arrangement, which tries to make a rousing rocker out of it also feels kind of weird. Maybe this was his way of reclaiming the experience and conveying a sense of surviving it, having new hope?

The "oh my, goin' to the river" bridge, and its very affected vocal style are, er, a little much for me. Looking forward to him finding other ways of reaching for ~soul~ in his performances...

omg I got to 2:30 minute mark of that song mostly thinking eh unremarkable piano balladry which then abruptly veered into HOLY GOD STOP THAT NOW

2:35 certainly was a surprise

lmao this song is so much

yeah i def agree about the 2.30 min turn into NOPE

stripped back version is preferable for me

fucking hell....y'all

is that weird voice at 2:30...the origin of Axl Rose's low "where do we go now" or "gonna kick him on down the line-ay-ne" voice??????

definitely him trying to pull off a "blue-eyed soul" thing... so it goes back at least to mccartney on "i've got a feeling." or the blues as rendered by eric burdon or long john baldry or someone like that. or, obviously, directly to soul and/or blues records by black artists. but given the mccartney-isms we've observed elsewhere, my mind kinda goes that direction.

mccartney for sure. and he worshipped ray charles.

also similar to that voice he uses on It's All About Soul

this is worse tho

s that weird voice at 2:30...the origin of Axl Rose's low "where do we go now" or "gonna kick him on down the line-ay-ne" voice??

Nah Axl borrowed that from Black Oak Arkansas/Big Jim Dandy

kicking myself for not thinking of ray charles, and not just because much later on we'll be getting to a duet between the two. very strong reference point for his playing and songwriting.

maybe but i think this sounds more like axl than jim dandy esp the ow lawd deliver me down to the riv-vah

h8 u for getting Axl's adlib of "Stepping Stone" stuck in my head :)

Thought the same thing about the Axl voice -- especially after seeing this clip of the two Bill's performing together.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D5ooZnySKdU

DEEN CHA

lol

quite possibly my least favorite song on the album. the melody doesn't pay off, the lyric is a C+ suicide note at best (apologies if that's in bad taste, which i assume it is), and then he tries to rescue both with that ray charles axl rose thing, which makes *me* want to commit suicide. instead, i cleansed my palate with a quick listen to gilbert o'sullivan's far superior "alone again (naturally)."

Nocturne, the penultimate track on the debut, is one of very few instrumentals Billy ever committed to record - prior to his 2001 side-step into classical composition, anyway. It was put out as a single in the Netherlands (and maybe elsewhere?) but doesn't seem to have made much noise.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jl0CIhD1i6s

If that's not enough to sink your teeth into, consider the demo - not an instrumental, but a lyrical number also known as "Silver Seas." I had no idea.

You Look So Good To Me: Cute. The Hammond organ is a nice change-up

Tomorrow is Today: Oh I quite like this one. Very "Let It Be", timeless melody, one of those songs I uh what is going on in the bridge... and an overblown ending too. what a way to kill a promising song

Nocturne: I've never heard a Joel instrumental, this one's ok. Pretty, but not much there. I like that he often has one unexpected chord change or section in many of his songs, but this one didn't really have that. Maybe the b-section I guess

Tomorrow is Today: wasn't doing anything for me until the big WTF moment. Didn't make it good, but did make it distinct. And he sorta does that same voice during one bit in "Scenes From an Italian Restaurant."

Nocturne: um, nice?

xxxpost

damn it's weird how the phrasing and riff of the rocked-up verses to "Big Shot" kinda SOUND like GnR

Nocturne: "It's called Lick my Love Pump"

"tomorrow is today" is my fav so far for its total commitment to being both ridiculous and pretty, which, same

lol @ums

It's like a Machturne, really.

"nocturne" is like one of those piano interludes on "zen arcade," only better composed, better played and longer. i'm not sure any of those three metrics actually helps. there are better, more fun instrumentals to come, and i wish billy did more of them over the course of his career.

iirc --- this is probably Allmusic info I absorbed decades ago, and the real story may well be more nuanced --- the presence of two instrumentals on "streetlife serenade" was because the album was sorta rushed and he just didn't have that much material with lyrics ready. but finding out that "nocturne" began as a more typical joel song and got the lyrics chopped made me wonder.

i love those streetlife serenade instrumentals. they might well be the best two songs on the album. looking forward to those discussions in a couple weeks. but i can't imagine the side 1 instrumental was ever intended as anything but an instrumental. the side 2 one, on the other hand, hmmm, maybe?

I feel obligated to mention that, due to this thread, I am thinking of making the protagonist of the YA novel that I've been brainstorming (though I probably wouldn't get around to starting it for another 2 years) a die hard Billy Joel fan.

How is Joel rated as a keyboardist?

xpost woo!!! thread is worth it imho

I feel obligated to mention that, due to this thread, I am thinking of making the protagonist of the YA novel that I've been brainstorming (though I probably wouldn't get around to starting it for another 2 years) a die hard Billy Joel fan.

"I memorized every Billy Joel song, from Allentown to Zanzibar. I played each song until I mastered it, then moved on to the next one"

lol

omg that bigshot clip, so bad, so good. bald billy just sitting there like a schlump when the guitar comes in, fat axl with his fucking shirt around his waist

Over the line, calstars. Time to go home.

please pack yr knives and go

There are many gems of awesome in that song but I can never quite be reconciled with the out-of-placeness of the goofy sax break.