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

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

^^

this song *is* the sound of fender rhodes for me. love love love the instrumental coda. good saxophone too.

"i went on the road/you pursued an education" sounded romantic and cool to me when i was in high school. not so much now. i think of this song as the billy equivalent of the kinks' "do you remember walter," which i am equally ambivalent about. the kinks song gets better if you acceot that he's singing about, and to, himself. "james" doesn't offer that option.

I had a dream last night that I was desperately sorting through a friend's cassette collection for some totally awesome late 70s Billy Joel comp so thanks a lot ilx

I am a sucker for this Rhodes sound and the backing vocals are nice but god the sentiment in this song is so gross. Alto sax solo also a little too late 70s dentist office waiting room. "Do You Remember Walter" is a good reference point, as is Lou Reed's "Billy" although I think both of those are just miles better lyrically, more nuanced and conflicted.

agreed that the sound on this is fantastic. nice tune too. wish i liked the lyric; it's SO close to a simple reflective "it's sad that we've grown apart" song which is an under-explored lyrical vein (e.g. madeline's "a different place," written as a late teenager/young adult). but joel can't help but insinuate that james is wrong-headed in his chosen direction, an ivory-tower weenie unable to define his own life, etc. sigh. with hindsight the whole thing feels like a mere dry run for "just the way you are" which goes for a much more crowd-pleasing sentiment on a similar arrangement.

Pleasant.

Sounds great through headphones: the left and right hands are split in the left/right channel. And the sax solo feels much more live than the late-70s sax solos to come - the breathing comes through.

yeah lyrically this is so smug and judgmental. by contrast with "Billy" where Lou is the layabout loser who nonetheless survives, while golden-boy Billy does everything right and then senselessly dies young.

(still some snark in the Lou song, but I think it's leavened with other things - genuine regret, envy etc.)

and then senselessly dies young

only the good, obvs.

heh

actually I had to check and Lou's Billy doesn't die he just gets ruined by the war ("When he came back, he wasn't quite the same/His nerves were shot, but not me/Last time I saw him, I couldn't take it anymore/He wasn't the Billy I knew, it was like talking to a door")

I think the Rhodes thing has something to do w/the fact that the opening credits to the show Taxi had some strange effect on me as a child, I can't really put it into words but it was so gritty to me just the depiction of NYC in those credits

I was pretty young to even get the show that much but my parents loved it

Love me some 70s soft rock but, sorry, this is annoying and boring.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M2iNLt_hUZg

A live staple, and often a curtain-raiser, Prelude/Angry Young Man continues the theme of men with whom Billy Joel would like to have a word.

The intro makes me wonder if anyone's ever tried to cover "Baba O'Reilly" manually.

You almost feel like you're heading back to Billy the Kid territory there for a second.

Some cool percussion and acoustic guitars during the verses.

Song's more fun to hear him sing in this century.

And why hello, Mr. Moog. It's been at least five minutes.

If the lyric weren't so nakedly dickish with its "pointless point of view," this would be one of my very favorite Joel album tracks... it's got so much energy. The arrival of the main song feels like a dry run for the move between the second and third sections of "Scenes From An Italian Restaurant."

Brenda and Eddie were the popular steadies, with their working class ties to the prom.

DAMMIT, CASINO.

As a kid, I spent a good amount of time wondering what working class ties look like. Striped?

haha I still always hear it as a reference to neckwear and not his active participation in local union actions. going to meetings, trying to help with things... what an asshole!

"Brenda and Eddie were the popular steadies"

Sure you mean Brendar and Eddie

"Brenda Rinetti," when I first heard it at Kroger circa 1994.

wtf @ these lyrics

and the pace is insane, trying to cram all those shitty words into that rapid-fire delivery.

I am beginning to understand why Joel was so quick to take a bite out of Elvis Costello's schtick when he came along

Me, I like P/AYM - but not in an unquestioning way.

You can understand the AYM as a recognizable bathetic character - frustratingly inflexible, dogmatic, myopic, overconcerned with martyrdom, well-intentioned but flawed, unable to do triage or relax - without necessarily sharing the POV of the narrator 100%.

I spent many years working around angry young environmental and animal-rights activists. I sometimes wondered how much of their motives had to do with vicarious traumatization and performative rage, and how much genuine concern that could be channeled into positive, constructive action.

But I have never been able to accept that agitating for social justice is inherently childish - especially in 2017. "Just surviving" is not a "noble fight" for a straight white guy who is rich and famous.

For the moment, just as a mental experiment, I'm going to try to give Billy the benefit of the doubt. Maybe the narrator is not his sincerest thoughts. Maybe he's wearing a mask. Or maybe not! Maybe I'm giving him too much credit. Not sure it matters that much, but my ambivalence about the ethics expressed in the lyric clouds my view of the song.

it does that thing that generally bothers me about Billy's "character sketch" songs (for lack of a better term) is that they're devoid of shade, nuance, subtlety, contradiction - they're all very flat and one-dimensional. Billy's POV on his characters can usually be summed up in one line, but he's compelled to drag them out for five verses.

like there's no twists or turnabouts or mysterious details everything is just "hey this guy's a jerk!" or "these people are losers!" or "this couple's in love!" and like... that's it.

Οὖτις, I know the comparison with Mr. MacManus is sometimes talked about, but I don't get it (having listened to pretty much every record that both men made for decades).

Elvis's nastiness is often oblique and impressionistic. The sneers and jabs are direct ("I wish you luck with a capital F"), but the stories and characters tend to be more veiled and blurred. Joel establishes a literal narrative with specific referents; his characters inhabit a familiar and defined NY/LI geography complete with brand names ("paintings from Sears") and makes and models of actual cars. Elvis is more like a salad shooter of imagery in an imaginative no-man's land ("You're sending me tulips mistaken for lilies" or "a ten-inch bamboo cigarette holder and a black fake leather glove").

oh I wouldn't take the EC comparison too far, I think Billy's appropriation of his schtick can m/l be restricted to "It's Still Rock n Roll To Me" and "You May Be Right" (primarily the vocal delivery and the videos).

Beyond that I think it's just surface similarities - Nieve's keyboards, some bitter white guy posturing etc.

they are very different writers, no doubt about it.

fwiw I am not nearly the EC fan I used to be in my younger days, his limitations and tics haven't aged exceptionally well - altho our current neo-fascist political situation did make me circle back around to him recently. The "Avenging Nerd" has his uses.

Billy's appropriation of his schtick can m/l be restricted to "It's Still Rock n Roll To Me" and "You May Be Right" (primarily the vocal delivery and the videos)

I grant you that - certainly the slapback delay on "Still Rock & Roll" recalls This Year's Model-era Elvis, and the knock-kneed vintage posturing in the video. But Billy always lays out a literal narrative in complete sentences, vs. EC's seesawing between directness and opaqueness. Whether that's a bug or a feature I leave up to the listener.

I have never been able to accept that agitating for social justice is inherently childish - especially in 2017. "Just surviving" is not a "noble fight" for a straight white guy who is rich and famous.

this. maybe it isn't fair to judge a 40-year-old song against what's happening in the world today, but the whole "i believe i've passed the age of consciousness and righteous rage" sentiment sounds particularly heinous in 2017. whose rage was he dismissing in 1976? why is he so angry himself about the other guy's anger? who's really the boring-as-hell guy in this fight?

also, is this an alternate-universe "james" that billy is yelling at? while james pursued an education, his brother jack skipped classes to protest on campus, and billy wrote a dismissive song about him, too?

also also: the moog solo makes even less sense than most billy moog solos, and the acoustic gtr is another taste of cod reggae i could probably do without.

"prelude" is great though.