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

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.

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

good question. billy should do that.

fccuz, does it help that Billy later takes a turn toward at least some ham-handed humanitarianism later?

He's been spotted wearing a yellow star in the past week or so in anti-Nazi solidarity.

"Allentown" and "Alexa" could both be read as economic-justice pleas, however clunky and appropriating.

And he didn't completely sit out the reasonably well-intentioned charitygasms of Band Aid / USA for Africa / Live Aid, right?

I'm only concerned w it in terms of songwriting, i dont care about his politics otherwise tbh

fccuz, does it help that Billy later takes a turn toward at least some ham-handed humanitarianism later?

that definitely helps those songs in their ham-handed way, but it doesn't do anything for this song.

i am very glad for the yellow star. that was a cool gesture.

(sidebar: i grew up a huge billy joel fan, and i grew up very aware of my own jewishness and of jewishness in pop culture. and i had absolutely no idea, none, not even a hint, until quite recently that billy is jewish.)

Little-know fact: real name Shlomo Joelberg.

Lol yeah i thought he was italian for a long time

I do like YMP's take because yeah it's not like I haven't met activist dudes that fit Joel's takedown to a T - it's just the suggestion that the correct response is to be so over it and roll eyes at those silly people who still "believe in causes" that takes us over into classic self-satisfied smugness, the 60s in full retreat.

I don't agree that Billy's characters are always one-dimensional (though he does, sometimes, go to extremes) but often the interest/nuance does come in what he forgets to write with a sorta sketchily-rendered situation. I tried to make the case for some ambiguity in "Captain Jack," but more typical are the multi-character songs like "Piano Man" and "Movin' Out" where you barely learn anything about these people and have to do a lot of your own projecting. IMO, that works when what we *do* get is evocative and unusual, and fails when it's just stock-character cliche. The second-person "let me tell you what's your problem" songs are certainly the most bludgeoning and unsubtle.

James: Fender Rhodes & alto sax makes this 100% Veg bait. Love it

Prelude/Angry Young Man - cant not hear "Scenes " in the main song now that Dr Casino pointed it out. I really like this one too

Anyways all I meant was that it's (just barely) possible Joel himself didn't regard all activism as foolish, naïve posturing, but rather constructed a character who thought so - or at least pretended to think so when presented with the garish spectacle of the AYM.

That the real-life Billy felt like standing up for causes he believes in? That suggests that the narrator of AYM have backed down a notch on the disdain for earnest activist types.

But of course I don't require recording artists to be exemplary humans to like songs (if I did, I'd have to throw out at least half the library.) It's only because this song so overtly addresses the ethics of how to live in society that it's even a question.

xps galore

Or, Dr. C otm

it's not like I haven't met activist dudes that fit Joel's takedown to a T - it's just the suggestion that the correct response is to be so over it and roll eyes at those silly people who still "believe in causes" that takes us over into classic self-satisfied smugness

7th grade or so, I actually recorded Billy Joel's HBO Live from Long Island concert onto a cassette, and never really listened to his albums at home after that.

So this is the version I know:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ctPPnPygCd8

Brenda and Eddie were the radical heavies
Wearing working-class ties to the prom
Riding around with the angry young man and the radio on

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

― Eazy, Friday, August 25, 2017 9:10 AM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

http://i.imgur.com/1Mc9mMc.jpg

The lyric may be a tad more ambiguous than it is being given credit for, at least in the suggestion that this is Billy waving goodbye to a former version of himself (I was an "angry young man," but now that I'm older, caring about shit is boring). Still, the sentiment feels a little too akin to the Eagles appalling "Get Over It" two decades later, in that the appropriate audience response is most clearly intended as an eye-roll at this particular kind of character.

As a song, the prelude and Billy's rapid-fire delivery are fun, even if the whole thing leaves a bad taste. In other words, this is simply misguided where the Eagles song is a hate crime.

I've seen the "singing to himself" interpretation online but don't quite get it - if this guy will "go to the grave as an angry old man," how can he be the same guy who's happily transitioned to "just surviving" ?

the suggestion that this is Billy waving goodbye to a former version of himself

I don't think the text supports this reading - "He'll go to his grave as an angry old man," as Dr. C notes.

I DO think it does allow for more sympathy and even affection than a simple one-dimensional takedown. "There's a place in this world..." "Give a moment or two..." "It's a comfort to know his intentions are good."'

He's happily transitioning, but he recognizes strains of his former self in the latest crop of angry young men. He's more optimistic about his own future than he is theirs, sure, and maybe this is just another example of the dickishness of the song. You're right, it doesn't exactly scan; I'm just trying to account for why he throws in a bit about self-identifying.

better yet, what puffin said!

(though I still think the song is at least 80% a snarky takedown)

I don't think he's singing to himself. He's taking the piss and laughing at 60s idealism

crypto, 80% is about right, yeah

And God all the words and syncopation, it's like some erudite old geezer's rendition of Subterranean homesick blues

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

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_PVlMTCG-BI

First comment HOF on that, too

I like the bass line and those staccato acoustic strums.

The verse melody sounds like something Belle & Sebastian would write twenty years later.

I don't hear what's so repellent about the lyrics -- it's a sketch. The arrangement has so much energy that it palliates the angry. To me "Angry Young Man" is Joel's wry take on the kind of fella he knows well and may recognize in himself.

it's a shitty sketch!

it's more like a page from a coloring book

I don't expect narrative complexity from Billy Joel.

^ ding ding

Eazy, thx for posting that video!! great stuff
Man Devitto really whales on those drums holy crap

One thing I took away from recent live vids ITT is that I would rather be in a band with DeVitto than Weinberg. Max is fine but staid in comparison.

wtf max is cool

Max is cool but Liberty brings more dynamism imo.

But my fave live version of this is probably the Russian tour doc released as "Matter of Trust," in which I think Stegmeyer does goofy dances wearing Miami Vice-colored pants and narrow leather suspenders.

Wow at the Baba video. Would've been cool even if he hadn't played the "regular" chords.

Man, my dad went off on Liberty DeVitto one night while we were watching them on The Tonight Show or something. "I'd FIRE that guy! Look at how much of a DISTRACTION he is!"