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

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

Yeah, glad to hear 11-year-olds are still getting into Billy Joel. I would have loved to see him live when I was that age. My parents listened to him a lot when I was a baby/toddler and they tell me I liked him then, but I was exactly 11 when River of Dreams came out and that's when I got into him on my own. Didn't seem corny at all at the time, but by the time I was 12/13 I definitely had some friends I wouldn't have wanted to know I liked Billy Joel.

Billy Joel seems to be a timeless entity. when I was in a production of High School Musical in 2017, majority of the cast was in high school, and one of the cast members was very into him and knew his entire history, would wax philosophically about what "Captain Jack" was about.

I got my parents tickets to see him in 2019 I think (back when my dad could still go to that sort of thing), and I opted not to join. kinda regretted that - mom sent videos and it seemed like it was a good time.

Now I’m remembering. I did make my only purchase of a BJ tape when I was around that age - it was Storm Front I think - and it was because I heard “big man on mulberry st” on tv - maybe Moonlighting - and I liked the song and grew up a few blocks away from the real Mulberry st

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

Some of his other favorites are Weird Al, Queen, Huey Lewis, the Beatles, Elvis Presley, Taylor Swift, and Edvard Grieg. His best friend is also a connoisseur of older music, but he says most of the other kids in his class just like pop music (by which I think he means contemporary stuff).

happy birthday, BJ!

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

I just realized that the chorus of "I Missed Your Party" by Camera Obscura has a Billy Joel reference. I missed it before because she sings it as "Billy jo-EL" with the accent on the second syllable.

I listen to Billy Joel
I watch Flashdance again
I'm going to get through Walt Whitman
I'm going to be in bed by ten

madison sq garden residency ending july 2024! this thread should buy a block of tickets for one of the last shows, before our billy gets put in the back in the discount rack like another can of beans!

(i've seen two of the msg shows and, as anyone left on this thread should know, dude's still a really really good arena rock entertainer!)

He didn't start with music
He had lots of verses
That were bad to worsest

He didn't start with music
The chorus was boring
Even fans were snoring

before our billy gets put in the back in the discount rack like another can of beans

A can of red beans
A can of white
Whatever kind of mood you're in tonight

Lol

I’ve seen a couple women wearing BJ shirts in the last week, what is it

Went to the MSG show with my 16-year-old daughter earlier this month. I was a mess for the first few songs, but emotionally recovered by the time he brought out his 9- and 7-year-old daughters out to sing "Jingle Bells".

It was a lot to take in, but the man still exceeded my somewhat-handicapped expectations. High points were "Zanzibar" and "Sometimes a Fantasy". Low points were the Christmas songs. Biggest WTF point was bringing out Elvis Costello and playing "Pump It Up" and duetting on "Allentown".

He can't sing [''An Innocent Man''] now.

he hasn't been able to sing this for at least 25 years! crystal taliefero started singing the high note for him when she joined his touring band, which was circa 1990.

― fact checking cuz, Sunday, October 22, 2017 2:14 PM

He hit 'em on this night! He even did this big self-depreciating intro of saying how he wrote the song in 1982 because he knew it was only a matter of time before his voice would stop going so high. But he was going to give it a shot anyway, and he nailed it! Taliefero had her mouth closed the whole time!

(Now, was there some Billy Vanilli happening? "Innocent Man Until Proven Guilty" will be my conceit here.)

"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.

― o. nate, Friday, April 28, 2023 8:35 AM

There were two 13- or 14-year-olds in front of us who went NUTS when the opening chords started, launching into each others' arms like they had just heard John play the opening chord to "A Hard Day's Night" from the Shea Stadium pitcher's mound. I looked over at my daughter, who just shrugged her shoulders.

Innocent Man Until Proven Guilty

lol. but also kol. kvelling out loud. go get those high notes, billy!

love everything about your post, pplains, except i can't believe billy didn't make elvis sing "sleeping
with the television on." or "sometimes a fantasy."

HUWUNN
TWOOOO
HWUN TWOO THREEE FAWW

― Squeaky Fromage (VegemiteGrrl),

i can't believe billy didn't make elvis sing "sleeping with the television on." or "sometimes a fantasy."

I know, right? At one point, I was all He doesn't have Elvis confused with Billy Bragg or somebody, does he?