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

Your sister's out, she's on a date
You just sit at home and refresh Nate

We didn't stop the counting

... for the longest time

The night is still young, doc.

Combed my hair in a pompadour
Like the soon-ex-potus wore

But the ballots wouldn't quit
And Trump had a fit
When they cut him down to 225

You just sit at home and refresh Nate

excellent work by both YMP and Vinnie imo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8nJZwRIy8G8

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7jpeQt3Lxls

Maybe I'm Amazed and Live and Let Die are Billy's two contributions to the 2014 tribute album The Art of McCartney. I haven't really dug into the backstory of this album, but Wiki indicates it has roots back in 2003 so I'm not clear when this would have been recorded.... anyway though, what the hell is going on with his voice on these recordings? Is there some AutoTune business trying to get him back to his voice from the 70s, and in the process making his blowsy attempts at throaty emphatic singing sound like Belushi doing Joe Cocker? It's really distracting to me. The "Stranger" whistling thrown randomly into "Live and Let Die" really doesn't work for me, also.

(realized i never did go back and round up the various late-career curios at the bottom of my chronological spreadsheet. i mean, why not?)

"Let's see if we can blend 'The Stranger' into 'Patience' and really fuck up this Macca!"

https://i.imgur.com/bzAMGek.jpg

I generally like "Maybe I'm Amazed" but Billy misunderstands it here. He tries to bring the growl too early.

What is affecting about Paul's song is the tenderness of the verse and the way the chorus brings the grit.

By trying to bring growl into the verse, Billy leaves himself nowhere to go when the chorus arrives, and he just sounds hoarse and strained.

Rookie mistake. If you turn up to eleven you have no twelve.

I hate everything about "Live and Let Die" so I have never heard this version, and on principle I am not going to

What is affecting about Paul's song is the tenderness of the verse and the way the chorus brings the grit.

and his solid lead guitar

great points YMP.

(also feel like said rookie mistake is probably made by a LOT of people trying to cover this song.)

"When am I gonna take control, get a hold of my emotions? STOP LIGHTING THE AUDIENCE!
Why does it always seem to hit me in the middle of the ni-i-ight? STOP IT!
You told me there's a number I can always dial for assistance. LET ME DO MY SHOW FOR CHRISSAKE!"

what in god's name is this and why i have never heard of it? the terribleness of these covers is kind of a given, and puffin, alfred and doctor c all very otm. but what strikes me is that billy seems to have tried really hard to make something of maybe i'm amazed while appearing to have tossed off live and let die with no thought whatsoever with the three minutes of studio time he had left using a bar band that had just wandered into the studio hoping to score some drum heads or maybe an autograph. live and let die is the one he should have spent his time on. he could've covered that circa turnstiles and totally made it work.

totally. also.... why does he have two songs on a tribute album? that's kinda weird, right? scanning the tracklisting it looks like Heart does as well but i don't think anybody else does. i do like the idea of Wanda Jackson covering Run Devil Run so maybe i should dig into this a little more.

hard to find Macca fans innit

tell that to the Airborne Toxic Event and Peter Bjorn and John!

(it's actually a very star-studded lineup, but the majority of the acts are ones whose fans likely don't need a huge amount of prodding to buy a paul mccartney album. maybe that was the idea tho --- overload on boomer classic rock artists and NPR fare to draw out latent/potential macca fans who've just never made the leap. but then again: Smokey Robinson doing "So Bad"? that sounds... " So Good !"

https://img.discogs.com/RzHSUPbezNxaKIyytqMZ53ziOu0=/fit-in/600x600/filters:strip_icc():format(jpeg):mode_rgb():quality(90)/discogs-images/R-6749265-1425831796-4827.jpeg.jpg

Continuing in the same vein: in 2009, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame organized a two-night concert at Madison Square Garden with many Hall of Famers performing a mix of their own golden greats and those of other inductees. Apparently this event led to the Metallica/Lou Reed album Lulu but that doesn't concern us right now. As you would expect, Time-Life stepped in to market this boomer fantasy scenario as a 2-DVD package as well as a 4-CD box set with staggeringly bad cover art, so I counted Billy's contributions when I made my original spreadsheet of all his released material.

In this case, Billy did not get his own set, but gamely jumped in as one of a spree of acts supporting Bruce Springsteen and the E-Street Band. In this capacity he was preceded by Sam Moore of Sam & Dave, Tom Morello of RATM, John Fogerty of CCR, girl-group legend Darlene Love, and Tom Morello again for some reason. At the end of the set, all of these luminaries rejoined Bruce and the gang onstage, plus Jackson Browne (who was in some of the other sets that night) and J. Geils's frontman Peter Wolf (who was waiting for this one shot) to do "(Your Love Keeps Lifting Me) Higher & Higher)." Billy's short tenure with the E Street Band involved versions of "You May Be Right" and "Only The Good Die Young," but these did not make it to the CD set. Instead, I give you a combination that seems somehow inevitable though I'm not sure it was ever asked for: Billy and Bruce trading verses on "New York State of Mind" and.... "Born to Run."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DZq5hy2RsvM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l2BvmL2MMJ8

And what the hey, here's that "Higher and Higher." Obviously this is a 'party' performance that's more about the vocalists and everybody having a good time, but Billy's piano is pretty prominent:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0tWOiipIsG4

lol tough crowd for that one huh

oh god that version of ny state of mind. exactly as awful as i remembered. i can hardly think of a pop song less suited for springsteen's voice. wouldn't have minded hearing him have a go at "say goodbye to hollywood." as for billy's verse on "born to run," is he kind of sort of trying to do a springsteen imitation on a couple of lines but then he's not sure if he should be trying that? also, is it too much to ask a pop star to memorize a single verse of a song they're guesting on? i do like bruce's intro: "the bridge and tunnel summit meeting!"

agreed that Billy sounds terrible on Born to Run. probably is trying to do a Bruce impression, we know what a pastiche artist he is, but it's a challenge and maybe one he coulda met (better anyway) back in the 70s.

NY State of Mind is interesting cause both guys are, I think, trying to do their version of Ray Charles. which is something Billy was pretty decent at back in the day, but which is maybe less of a reach for Bruce? the "bridge and tunnel" thing is funny cause i don't usually think of the song as being from the POV of Long Island (versus say Captain Jack, which btw i imagine Bruce could tear up). makes it feel a lot more touristy. "you know... chinatown, the rivers, New York!"

ha, otm with that bridge and tunnel observation. makes NY State of Mind feel a lot dorkier to look at it that way. But maybe it just unveils the already latent dorkiness therein

i remember my best college buddy having a similar beef with PJ Harvey's "Good Fortune" when it was (briefly) in constant MTV2 rotation, with its shoutouts to Little Italy and Chinatown.

listened to Turnstiles last night and man, Veg OTM upthread about how much it adds to have the real main genuine Billy Joel band here. even when the songwriting/lyrics aren't quite to peak Joel, it's a blast listening to them make music together. total studio pro sound but still fairly rough and ready. the outro to "James" (a fairly weak song imho --- the bridge disappears from my brain seconds after it's done) actually has this fascinatingly odd bass/keyboard interaction, as Joel wanders into the Middle Ages while Stegmeyer keeps things bopping along. and then right after that, you're in the intense bar-band-prog of "Angry Young Man"'s instrumental sections. Which are bonkers!!!! Like I'm not gonna mistake them for Yes; they're too restrained and locked-in-tight, and not as skilled or ambitious.... but it's pretty cool! And then they give "Miami 2017" this jolt of "Runnin' on Empty" intensity --- not quite enough to overcome that dead weird echo on Joel's voice (the live version is another story) but without that, if the whole song was like the first verse, it'd be a drab 1970s "Love Theme From..." movie soundtrack ballad. Maybe he always would have said "and now it needs to rock, but this is the band that actually makes that happen.

also never noticed the yelled studio chatter or ad libs at the end of "Say Goodbye to Hollywood." what is that?

one worry: if i'm giving the band credit for what works, do i also have to give them some of the blame for the ""reggae"" arrangement on "All You Wanna Do Is Dance"?

Yes

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?