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

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.

Polishing off Cold Spring Harbor: Got To Begin Again.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZKA7y0iKHWA

This one's another piano-and-vocals arrangement that was not substantially altered in the remix, so that's what I'm using. If you really want some warble and muffle, the fan attempted at correcting the 1971 release is here. With a tip of the hat to TheZestanor, I am glad to put this album and its weird release history behind us - things get simpler from here!

er, "fan attempt"

How is Joel rated as a keyboardist?

Here's what he told A. Baldwin:

Billy Joel: I know what good piano playing is and I’m not good. My left hand is lame. I am a two-fingered left-hand piano player.

Alec Baldwin: As opposed to?

Billy Joel: As opposed to somebody who knows what they’re doing with their left hand. I never practiced enough to use all my fingers on my left hand, so I just play octaves, bass notes. My right hand tries to compensate for my left hand being so gimpy, so I overplay on my right hand. My technique is horrible. I can’t read music. I never really got--

Alec Baldwin: You don’t read music?

Billy Joel: I used to but I don’t anymore. I forgot how.

Alec Baldwin: If I took a piece of music that you didn’t know, if I got a score and put it in front of you and I said, 'Play this—'

Billy Joel: It would be Chinese.

a lot of this feel very much like a "first album"...pleasant enough, he's obv a talented guy and piano player but a lot of it kinda fades out of my mind the mind the song is done

also definitely doesn't have the sort of chutzpah (for lack of a better word) that I associate with Billy...to me his is maybe the ultimate "try hard" in music history (to his credit and discredit)....like it's funny in that clip above where he's imitating Elton, Neil and Leon Russell, he's like a really good piano student showing off for his parents almost, like look at I can do what they do, and in particular he seems to talk a little sideways about Neil like "I would never write anything like that, it's too simple" or "Elton's more rhythmic, I do more five finger stuff" haha, like Neil in particular I think drives "try hard" people really nuts (like the Eagles and Stephen Stills) because he just puts stuff out there half formed at times or just abandons really great stuff for no reason, or does shit like On the Beach or Tonight's the Night when he's perfectly capable of making something really polished like "Old Man" or "Heart of Gold"...his indifference towards his own gifts must drive a work ethic guy like Joel nuts

I go back and forth cause his try-hardness also comes across in his later vocal style, the sort of almost bellowing, HERE'S THE HOOK I'M A CROWD PLEASER force behind the big lines and OHHHHHHHHHH she takes care of herself, etc... most of which I *love*, but listening closely to this album, and especially those songs that show up again in later live versions, I'm a little torn. Like until this week I would have always agreed 100% with the Songs in the Attic liner notes that the later live versions, undoubtedly with a tighter, beefier performing unit, were the definitive, ripened versions of these early songs. On most of those I agree, but there are moments when that confident for-the-bleachers singing seems like he's almost deliberately rubbing out some of the vulnerability of the songs, like he's embarrassed about what a twee bedroom saddo sap he was.

Tighter, beefier, ripened. No bot writes like that.

She's Got a Way is definitely better on Songs in the Attic. I guess I agree that he's effacing the Sensitive Guyness of Cold Spring Harbor but that's not much of a loss.

You want sensitivity, go buy one Dan Fogelberg record.

I think i can sum up most, if not all, of Cold Spring Harbor as pleasant juvenilia, but I'm anxious to hear him develop the qualities that I more closely associate with his songwriting and performances. "Everybody Loves You Know" is probably the closest that this album gets to what I think of the classic Billy style--cranky lyrics given a tuneful presentation that only partially obscures his withering scorn.

yeah that's OTM

basically I can see why, if I were an A&R back then, you'd sign the kid, but also in the immortal words of Tom Petty's fictional A&R: "I don't hear a single"...but the future was wide open

before we leave cold spring harbor behind, here's billy on the unfortunate mastering:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TCxAr69kLv8

Got to Begin Again: damn that is gorgeous
Maybe my 2nd favorite next to She's Got A Way

It's clear from the album that he has ~something~.
Aiming for the AM radio mush market may be what is creating that overarching "well, it's nice but meh" feeling from these songs

the confidence to show more of yourself/to understand & define your "style" in yr writing comes with experience imo

Like even just to relax enough to sing in a way where he sounds like he's from Long Island is a leap he hasnt quite made yet

Exciting to see this early Billy tho, I've enjoyed it

Exactly, VegemiteGrrl. It's interesting to see him in the larval phase, but the Lawn Guyland Brawler in him deserves full rein. So does the Tin Pan cheezemeister.

He could have gone the tweemo bedroom saddo route, and been James Taylor With a Piano, but we would miss out on so much that is to come.

i mean, imagine if they'd been like," nah these guys are a dime a dozen, NEXT"

In a sense, that's what happened! I don't really know the ins and outs, but what with the ginormous mastering screwup (not rectified) and the difficulty of finding even, like, posters from 1971-72 (the kind of thing you'd figure fans would have obsessively webified years ago, if they existed), I don't get the sense that Family was really doing much to promote the guy. Maybe I'm wrong and Artie Ripp was driving around delivering payola and calling in favors on his own time but I dunno.

I guess they at least managed to get him booked on regional radio shows, because the next key piece of Billy's narrative is that Philly "Sigma Sound Studio" radio gig that I've linked a couple times. The whole set is worth listening to as a well-preserved and high-quality recording of what he sounded like at that point, and he's already stepping away a bit from the AM Gold stuff, with a guitar solo taking the place of some of the bused-in orchestra on "Tomorrow Is Today.". But anyway, one of the new songs he was gigging with by that point is a bolder and much more distinctively Long Islandy ode to suburban anomie called... "Captain Jack.". We'll be dealing with that song soon enough but the thing is, it became this big airplay hit in Philly, most requested song in the station's history, that kinda deal, and this is what led to Clive Davis signing him up at Columbia, who *did* promote him. If not for that he really could be a totally forgotten dime-a-dozen guy and not this megaselling inescapable cultural force.

thread delivers, thanks

with the ginormous mastering screwup (not rectified) and the difficulty of finding even, like, posters from 1971-72 (the kind of thing you'd figure fans would have obsessively webified years ago, if they existed), I don't get the sense that Family was really doing much to promote the guy.

"got to begin again" turns out to have been the perfect sentiment to end his first solo album with. the solo album itself was him beginning again after two failed attempts to make his name with rock groups, and a suicide attempt, and who knows what else. but he'd have to begin again, yet again, as it turned out. and it's almost like he already knew.