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

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)

in fact I see all the albums right up to An Innocent Man as profoundly self-lacerating, as a kid when I heard "Tell Her About It" I thought wtf is this ebullient shit. His output since then became so milquetoast that it stained everything previous.

yeah like

“you’ve got us feelin alright”

can hardly be parsed into a resounding HOW FUCKING GREAT AM I

i mean even he’s referring to himself as “piano man” never stipulating that he’s a pianist or a musician or a piano player. garbage man takes out the garbage, piano man plonks on the piano

the song is basically this:
https://memegenerator.net/img/instances/71986959.jpg

there’s even that sort of organ grinder melody etc

ok i will shut up

Historically I’ve felt kind of the same way YMP does about this song, but re-reading the lyrics just now, VG’s and matttkkkk’s takes feel right to me

He's basically a malcontent. Wth his very next album, on "The Entertainer", he's no longer stuck in the piano lounge, but he's complaining about the difficulties of being a recording artist and having your record played on the radio.

Yeah, that's another off-putting thing about his records, or at least the hits/best of material I went through. Most of the time sounds sour or bitter and wallowing in self-pity. This is especially true for the relationship songs. To my understanding, he went through a terrible marriage that ended in divorce, and another failed relationship contributed to his early suicide attempt, so I gave him the benefit of the doubt, thinking "maybe he's been through a lot and unfortunately it's fucked him up like this." Regardless, it made it tougher to like his records. He can be a funny and entertaining guy as a talk show guest and his best hits (at least to me) tend to be the ones where you see that side of him.

(By marriage and relationship, I mean his first ones, not later when he started chasing after one supermodel after another.)

hmm... you're not wrong, but it's weird because i think of him as such a "fun" artist --- and see all the posts about folks like me becoming devoted fans in childhood because the songs were catchy, fun to sing along to, etc...

i wonder, is he any more of a lyrical malcontent, misanthrope, or self-pitying creep than most rock songwriter dudes of his generation? like, if i was looking for someone to really hang the "their lyrics just make them tough to like" hat on, it'd be John Lennon or even Daryl Hall before i got to Billy. could also be understood in some kind of family tree of "what in particular did people take away from Bob Dylan?"

This long Billy Joel / Alec Baldwin interview hits on "Piano Man":

Billy Joel: Oom-pa-pa. It’s a waltz. And it’s not really lyrics. They’re limericks. 'John at the bar is a friend of mine. He gets me my drinks for free. He’s quick with the joke or to light up your smoke, but there’s someplace that he’d rather be.' It could be, 'There once was a girl from Nantucket.' So they’re limericks.

Also there's this:

Alec Baldwin: What did you do after Nylon Curtain?

Billy Joel: After The Nylon Curtain, because it was such an intensive labor, The Nylon Curtain, something very dense and very complex, I wanted to do something simple and dumb and happy, and I did An Innocent Man, which is really an homage to all the music of my teenage years – Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons with “Uptown Girl.”

Alec Baldwin: And that was a hit.

Billy Joel: It was a big hit. It was a joke.

Lennon was at least as self-pitying by the time of Plastic Ono Band, but he had a much longer and intense relationship with his audience that gave it a fuller context. It wasn't a guy on his third album talking about how the music business was devoted to snuffing out his artistry.

Lennon was not self-pitying in 1980, I assure you. His interviews in this period are joys.

Self-pitying is one thing but Plastic Ono Band is brutal - flat out trauma and anguish. And even then he has a genuinely warm, beautiful ballad (all the love for Yoko on that LP is about the two of them as a whole - I don't get anything like that in Joel's music) and there's little touches of surreal humor that's very welcome and pretty unique to Lennon.

if i was looking for someone to really hang the "their lyrics just make them tough to like" hat on, it'd be John Lennon or even Daryl Hall before i got to Billy

(Laughs in "Elvis Costello fan")

I suspect someone at Columbia Records handed Billy a copy of My Aim Is True; "This is punk? Easy!" as he composes "You May Be Right".

TS: "Pump It Up" vs "It's Still Rock and Roll to Me"

Yeah, "It's Still Rock and Roll to Me" is what I had in mind in a previous post. A Joe Jackson pastiche, inane but rhythmically catchy.

"I'm The Man" vs "It's Still Rock and Roll to Me" maybe more apposite (but as much as I like both, "I'm the Man" dominates here)

I like all three, but these days I'd probably take "It's Still Rock and Roll" over "Pump it Up" or "I'm the Man". The subtle production touches are a plus. Lyrically its perhaps the corniest - Joel is not a cool ironist like Costello or Jackson - but he's right about the music.