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

Lol

I mean, the whole idea that a second job makes up for what's withheld from your full-time job's paycheck...that's fitting a lot into a line!

pplains, think about when they sent Wallace out to the Eastern Shore--same deal

Wouldn't be the first time I've heard *crickets* on this thread.

https://i.imgur.com/pXrN9wY.jpg

NO THANKS

you'd 86 that monthly residency eh

Just think, if each show had represented a year of the 20th century, he'd be up to The Bridge by now.

lol

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dzi_0d240Uk

tickets are... $150-160 with fees. yeesh. i'd kinda get a kick out of going, but that's rough.

Heard 'Uptown Girl' in a DIY store yesterday.

D.I.Y.

You know I seen her with a hardware guy

I bet her plumber never told her why

I got a crowbar and I aim to pry

And when she knows what she wants from her toolboxes

She'll see my wrenches and hinges and padlockses*

She'll see I'm not so raw

Just because I have a saw

And I D.I.Y...

* = sorry

Wow!
So much better than the original

https://imgur.com/Wawj5V5

Aw crud, supposed to be the splendid headlight polishing gif

https://imgur.com/Wawj5V5

I got a crowbar and I aim to pry

We didn't buy the pliers

They were always turning

I mean, he’s not half-assing it!

Last night’s set list:
Miami 2017 (Seen the Lights Go Out on Broadway)
Pressure
Rule, Britannia! (Thomas Arne cover) (Instrumental in honor of Queen Elizabeth.)
Everybody Loves You Now
Vienna
Running on Ice (Extract)
The Entertainer
An Innocent Man (Intro tease of ‘I’m Too Sexy’)
Don't Ask Me Why
Root Beer Rag
Big Man on Mulberry Street
Movin' Out (Anthony's Song)
The Downeaster Alexa
New York State of Mind
Allentown
My Life (With “Ode to Joy” intro)
She's Always a Woman (Syd Ruggles, daughter of sound guy Brian, on stage to play the flute)
Sometimes a Fantasy
Only the Good Die Young
Your Song/The Bitch is Back/Goodbye Yellow Brick Road/Ruby Tuesday
The River of Dreams (with ‘Dancing in the Street’ interlude sung by Crystal Taliefero)
Nessun dorma (Giacomo Puccini cover) (Sung by Michael Delguidice)
Scenes From an Italian Restaurant
Piano Man

Encore:
We Didn't Start the Fire
Uptown Girl
It's Still Rock and Roll to Me (With “Be Bop a Lula” intro)
Big Shot
You May Be Right (With interlude of Rock And Roll Led Zeppelin sung by Michael Delguidice)

whole lotta Billy

omg i had no idea this existed:

We Didn't Start the Fire: The History Podcast

apologies if someone who did know posted it two years ago or something. but new to me, and they're still making new episodes. current episode: "heavy metal suicide"!

just... wow

thanks i hate it

SALLY RIDE
RIDE SALLY RIDE! We can’t believe it’s true, but Sally Ride is the birth name of the woman who’d later to become the First American woman to orbit space. Talk about nominative determinism!

Because she... "rode" in the Space Shuttle?

thanks i hate it

you mean you CAN'T TAKE IT ANYMORE?!?!?

like, i know there’s a podcast for every thing and i am literally part of the problem but OMG its the fuckin podcast version of literally every newspaper & magazine article from 1989
BIG WHOOP

sorry

MAR I LYN MON ROE

Veg startin’ a fire

you could write a We Didn't Start the Fire that basically just listed SNL cast members at this point

i was honestly unprepared for how IA this makes me

this is some old lady yells at clouds
bullshit whatever who cares

but i was fully having to look this shit up in world book encyclopedias and read the dumb endless articles about these dumb nouns that were still kinda mystifying to me a 13 year old and not an aging man caught in a rapidly changing world besides duh turns out they just random names of things to rhyme in a song that you can sing along to

do we need a podcast about each of these nouns? do we fuck

30+ years later these little shits have computers in their pockets where they can just fuckin ask an ai bot to tell them about Red China Johnny Ray

like oooh i can’t wait for the Walter Winchell episode

FUCK OFF

BULLSHIT WHATEVER WHO CARES

would listen to those three or four podcasts :)

(also, you are not wrong)

Testify

Dan Aykroyd, Chevy Chase
John Belushi off his face
Radner, Curtin
Bill Murray invasion

There’s a clip out there somewhere of Bob Costas defending this and Dave Marsh responding that it was a rap song without the rhythm. I thought that description was hilarious and kind of reflected the problem with a lot of his songs - pastiches without the heart or the backbone of whatever he was emulating.

...and there you have the Joelian paradox: for him, the pastiche IS the heart. The emulation IS the point. He's not even an avatar of anything: the dude is a television channel. And I think he kind of knows that. Fortunately or unfortunately he has become associated with what he was broadcasting.

That said, I think he has genuine and sincere things to say (cf. "And So It Goes," "This Is the Time"). But he's had such a long career of being a glib entertainment channel, and that's so very easy and lucrative, that the real Bill (if there ever was one) got lost. It's either an American tragedy or a type of American triumph.

I may have thought about this guy an unhealthy amount (for reference, see this entire thread)

and we wouldn't want it any other way-ee-ay.

lol @ Doctor Casino... but the record will show that you, in fact, started the fire

Kenan Thompson, Colin Jost
Gleeson is a guest host
Che, Michael; Michaels, Lorne
Wishing I was never born

We didn't start the sketch show

TINA FEY
WENT AWAY
WHAT ELSE DO I HAFTA SAY

thanking u

veg on the mark.

I just hate podcasts though.

Do they give Nixon the ol' Grover Cleveland treatment since he appears twice in the song?

the long-awaited double-length "back again" episode

the only good thing about the song said podcast is based on is it gave us the opportunity to randomly insert "JFK, BLOWN AWAY, WHAT ELSE DO I HAVE TO SAY" as a non-sequitur into random conversations

https://i.imgur.com/ZQnlQjx.png

I saw Billy Joel a few nights ago at MSG. It was my wife's idea to get tickets as a present for our 11-year old son who is a fan. We were in the cheap seats, and we were surrounded by very young and enthusiastic Gen-Z kids who sang along and danced to all the hits (and even some of the album cuts that casual Joel fan me didn't recognize), or who got laughs by calling out ironically for "Tiny Dancer" or starting to sing "Benny and the Jets" between songs (not sure what the joke is exactly, other than that they are both old famous piano guys?) Anyway I have to respect Joel for his professionalism. The dude is in his 70s and had a slight cold, is apparently no longer super steady on his feet, but still seemed to be having a blast and the crowd was eating it up. The show was supposed to be on a Saturday but got postponed to a Tuesday because of the Rangers playoff game, but the place still seemed to be pretty full. My son was starting to get tired at about the 2/3rds point, but Joel (the canny professional that he is) of course had saved most of the high-energy hits for the end so once that started, he didn't want to leave. He did a "We Didn't Start the Fire" standing up and playing guitar - even tossed the mic stand around! I've always felt that song was cheesy to be honest, but the kids loved it. I know Joel gets dinged for being unauthentic or not writing songs from the heart, but I think this is related to the allergy of many rock fans for songs written in character, which Joel does in many of his songs, much like Steely Dan, another band people ding for insincerity. I think he is actually pretty underrated as a lyricist.

It’s cool that your 11 yo likes him

"Vienna" was one of the album cuts I didn't recognize that most people could sing along to. I guess that one has risen in popularity. It's not on my Greatest Hits CD.

An 11 year old Joel fan in 2023 is not something I was expecting. I can remember teen/tween Joel fandom being seen as a bit corny in 1983, and again in 1993.

O. Nate, your son is... dare I say it... keeping the faith