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

I think you mean hats off to harper

maybe that one too, but

All right! Now let's never speak of that again.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F5LkGKJDc3Q

New York State of Mind, though not issued as a single until a 2001 duet with Tony Bennett, is surely on the shortlist of Billy Joel's signature songs, and among his most-covered. I'll let Wiki do the talking as I don't have the energy right now to look up even a handful of these promising renditions, which start to sound like a lost "We Didn't Start the Fire" verse: Barbra Streisand, Lea Michele and Melissa Benoist, Joanna Wang, Elton John, Ramin Karimloo, Shirley Bassey, Oleta Adams, Carmen McRae, Mark-Almond, Diane Schuur, Ben Sidran, Mel Tormé, Frank Sinatra Jr., Adam Pascal, and Tony Bennett. Perhaps uniquely, it has been interpreted by two different Muppet acts, with a 1977 performance by Dr. Teeth and the Electric Mayhem at their least mayhemic, and a 1984 solo piano treatment by Rowlf the Dog (later to appear on 1993's Ol' Brown Ears Is Back. (Those are Jerry Nelson and Jim Henson on vocals, respectively.)

It also became a children's book with illustrations by Izak Zenou; "Billy Joel's evocative lyrics invite readers to tag along as two spirited little dogs experience the energy and excitement of New York City."

For Greatest Hits I & II, the sax solos by Richie Cannata (by that point no longer in the band) were stripped out and replaced with one by Phil Woods, a jazz veteran with some 1,843 credits on AllMusic. He'd previously worked with Joel, on "Just The Way You Are"; Wiki also highlights his contributions to Steely Dan's "Doctor Wu" and Paul Simon's "Have A Good Time" though for jazz heads the resume runs much longer. The version of the song in the YouTube above is the original Turnstiles album recording, I think, unless it's the third version created for the quadrophonic CD release. Doing A/B with my vinyl copy was getting awkward so if there's a splice late in the song or something I might have screwed this up.

This one was affecting when Joel played it at the 9/11 memorial concert.

and not at any other moment

disagree :)

i love this. and i will even admit to doing the ultimate cheeseball cornball move: i listened to it while i was walking around NYC when I visited roughly 10 years ago.

it didnt feel cheesy though! The music, especially the piano felt like it caught some kind of a mood that wasn't at all what I expected

Including this one and Miami 2017 on the same record is sooooooo Billy.

The song I always skipped on GH Disc 1. I don't hate it like I used to, but its still far too formal and "adult" for my tastes, and certainly not what I come to Billy Joel for.

What *does* one come to Billy for?

agreed - this song is absolutely cornball or at least on the border, but i think it works.

in a weird way i think it foresages something like the use of Gershwin in manhattan... this attempt to reconstruct a timeless and classy new-yorkness, despite the FORD TO CITY: DROP DEAD era vibe of the times. joel is no george gershwin, mind you! i just mean, compare this with "miami 2017" later on this record which is very much of that era, and even seems to anticipate the '77 blackout. here he's pushing all that aside and saying yeah but man this place is pret-ty cool if you're in the right mood. he adored new york city. he idolised it all out of proportion. (...) he thrived on the hustle and bustle of the crowds and the traffic. in the context of where the city was at in the 70s it seems like a conscious push-back, out in california they think new york's a hellhole but i've CHOSEN it! up yours!

the lyric's invocation of a handful of vague signifiers (newspapers, chinatown, riverside) is admittedly a rorschach blot, but no moreso than the place names in "this land is your land," whose opening lines retrace the same journey as "say goodbye to hollywood." notably, again vs. "miami 2017," in the opening lines here, miami beach and hollywood are both rejected as destinations.

it also feels to me like an attempt to get something into his setlist that could maybe take the place of "piano man" - similar opening in a way, similar pace, similar reflective mood though without the 'carnival' quality, piano torch song, but a little more for billy and the band to do.

one of my all-time favorite new york songs, totally separate from my love for billy. great american songbook material coupled with his best faux ray charles performance. "i don't have any reasons/i left them all behind" is a strange thing to say about new york -- that's an island-in-the-caribbean sentiment, not a new york city sentiment -- and yet it works in a "fuhgeddaboudit this is f#$%ing new york city stop asking questions" sorta way. and besides, he grew up on that island just to the east, so maybe that's how long islanders think. or something. i don't know. i don't need any reasons either. A-plus.

i like phil woods' tone better than richie cannata's but i like richie's solo better and i hate that billy switched it out.

all-time worst version: billy and bruce springsteen duetting at msg. it's sooooooo not bruce springsteen material.

leaving one's reasons behind is also a good late-twenties kind of thought, i think. it's a between-the-lines thing but to me it suggests this larger sense of, following all these reasons is what got me to a place i wasn't happy, with people i didn't like, doing work that didn't feel good. i'm leaving them all behind, going on something other than reasons this time - a hunch, a bet, a faith.

this attempt to reconstruct a timeless and classy new-yorkness, despite the FORD TO CITY: DROP DEAD era vibe of the times

otm

I don't think I had ever noticed or thought about this song prior to the 9/11 performance (at which my reaction was "what song is this?" lol). If this song didn't exist someone else would have had to invent it - it does feel of a piece with Woody Allen's "Manhattan" bit as Dr. C notes, and I would throw in maybe Paul Simon's late 70s stuff w sax solos ("Still Crazy After All These Years"? altho I guess that isn't very location specific).

It isn't terrible, really, but it's pretty schmaltzy and not really something that has any inherent appeal to me.

Wish there had been a Phil Ramone version.

Still Crazy is a good connection IMHO, even without the later Phil Woods connection and even if Paul's not singing explicit odes to New York. That album came out (on Columbia) in October '75 and was a huge hit - with a bunch of songs, variously jazz-flavored, that generally read as urban, adult, and ~sophisticated~ for lack of a better word. It was also produced by Phil Ramone, who'd been working with Paul for a while and would shortly produce The Stranger. So I think there's some overlap in maybe the kind of album Joel or the label was hoping to create, and the kind of market that this cocktail piano guy could feasibly reach.

It isn't terrible, really, but it's pretty schmaltzy and not really something that has any inherent appeal to me.

― Οὖτις, Wednesday, August 23, 2017

you'd prefer a solo John Cale take?

I would prefer Coney Island Baby

On the five hundredth listen, I will concede that this song could have been much better with one more lyrical pass. We're far from the incomplete-feeling compositions of the last album, but wouldn't this be a better song if on the second time through, the references to the New York Times, the Daily News, Chinatown and Riverside got swapped out for other signposts on Billy's appreciative dérive?

he used to add "newsday too" after the times and the daily news line in his concerts. does that count?

Watch Bruce blow Billy off the stage:

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

Watch Bruce blow Billy off the stage

no that is not what is happening in that clip.

the only way that combo could be made worse is if Don Henley walked onstage

Billy Joel live has sounded like dog shit for twenty years.

hi, Shakey!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A7pRf3TJVC8

can we please replace shakey and alfred with phil woods?

aw c'mon, I'm enjoying 'em here! the more the merrier. and it's not like shakey's straight trolling (*cough* elton john poll thread *cough*), I believe that if we hit a song he liked he'd tell us

i know i know! kidding! i enjoy it too. but the henley post made me want to do this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PqY6mXULzpw

fwiw Glass Houses was one of the first contemporary pop records I can remember hearing in my house as a kid so I do have a soft spot for some of that era even if I think various songs are kind of ridiculous now, as an adult. I mean his beer-chugging + bottle tossing Elvis Costello impression is pretty funny even if the material isn't *that* great.

I have to admit that the whole "angry underdog"/"I'm just a down-to-earth schmuck" aspect of his persona is inherently appealing to me on some level, and that occasionally he does hit on decent pop hooks, but all of that is undercut by his not actually being that great lol. Like, I sympathize with the guy demanding respect, but then it turns out that he doesn't really deserve it after all.

(I have no such sympathies with Elton John, who I just find annoying)

Bruce doesn't quite fit on NYSoM, no. But I'd take either that one or a Joel solo version over the live one with Tony Bennett.

So sick of that guy. Sorry, I'm sure he has done fine interpretive work and elegant recordings, but it seems like he's just been hanging around showing up to be an all-purpose duet whore, and I'm frankly tired of it.

New York State of Mind is cheesy but I like it

also deserves props for inspiring iconic songs for Nas and Jay-Z

Yah I don't love Bruce on the duet - I like the idea of it, and I like that they did it, but singing-wise he is too "big" and doesnt really slot into the mood of the song

i flippin love Billy's piano on the original though
LOVE

and it def has vague wisps Gershwin about it, for sure

i'm at a gay bar and someone is performing "new york state of mind"

at gay karaoke I once did "A Matter of Trust"!

Love "New York State of Mind", it sounds like NYC looks in old movies. I think if the lyrics were more sentimental, it'd be too much, but this sits in a nice spot. Helps that the melody is one of the best he'd written to this point

vinnie otm

My song at gay karoke would be Uptown Girl. Forget about the "girl" part, it's a gay song.

mine would be Allentown

pretty sure i've done say goodbye to hollywood, movin' out, uptown girl, big shot, and you may be right. probably only the good die young and the longest time too - just stands to reason. billy's songs are really fun to sing, everybody knows them, and they invite hamming it up a little.

CHHHHH UNGH HAH

Done "Vienna" at karaoke a few times.

You have to learn to pace yourself
CHHHH UNGH HAH

maybe we could all get up and do a group rendition of While The Night Is Still Young

mine would be Allentown

I have sung Allentown, while singing karaoke, in New York. The best bit is when you get to sing "Every child had a pretty good SHOT!"

I genuinely thought New York State Of Mind was a Muppets song till I discovered my dad's Billy Joel Greatest Hits a few years later. Zoot does the song justice.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cLsOIpCbf-g

James opens side two with a mellow ballad of sorts, dedicated to a friend who isn't living up to the life advice of wise old man Joel. As the album's second single, backed with "Summer, Highland Falls," it failed to chart everywhere except Australia (#77, backed with "All You Wanna Do Is Dance") and the Netherlands, where it made it to #16 (backed with "Travelin' Prayer," aka "Travellin' Prayer").

https://img.discogs.com/gkOx0CLdVz00gj2md0vYEeQNzg0=/fit-in/600x600/filters:strip_icc():format(jpeg):mode_rgb():quality(90)/discogs-images/R-2375929-1301860225.jpeg.jpg

This one also feels Paul Simony.

The bio quoted "James" as saying something like, "Eh, he's earned his artistic license. I'm flattered."

(And I finally click on that popshots link to see which "character" on the album cover is "James" (dude with the books.) Didn't realize when I wrote that first sentence that Paul Simon had one of his album inserts shot ten feet away from those turnstiles!

I like James a lot...very Paul Simon

I'm p much a sucker for that Fender Rhodes sound, instant nostalgia