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

eat tv dinners over the sink in the dark idk up to you

I lol'd

like he wants all this from her but he is giving her literally zero, just based on the song

"deep down i love you" means jack shit, buddy

"shit in one hand and wish in the other and see how long this marriage lasts. "

Weber and Joel married on September 5, 1973 and she became his manager. (...) Joel married his second wife, Christie Brinkley, aged 31 at the time, in March 1985.[87]  (...) On October 2, 2004, Joel married his third wife Katie Lee, aged 23 at the time.[91] At the time of the wedding, Joel was 55. (...) On July 4, 2015, Joel married his fourth wife, Alexis Roderick (aged 33 at the time), an equestrian and former Morgan Stanley executive, at his estate on Long Island with the Governor of New York, Andrew Cuomo, presiding over the ceremony.[94]

yep

i saw a thing on the Wiki that Liberty used to sing the chorus as "She took the house, she took the car"

hee

Rhodes + sax invites the "Still Crazy" comparison; they're a similar tempo etc.

But really, both songs need to exist so I've never felt the need to compare them

the gathering synth fog in the background of "just the way you are" is a buckinghamesque detail. i don't know if i've ever heard it before today

i guess those are just semi-opaque backing vocals and not a synth but they add so much to the song

lol sorry i started typing before i read everyone talking about the washing backing vocal

I'm still voting mellotron

The guy aimed so often to write a Great American Songbook song, and here he pulled one of the few contemporary ones.

like he wants all this from her but he is giving her literally zero, just based on the song

"deep down i love you" means jack shit, buddy

See also "Always on my Mind" and "Goodbye Stranger" and "Angel of the Morning"...

Brad's memoir title will be Gathering Synth Fog

true

I think "Always on my Mind" and the like were discussed in this thread:

Songs where the singer/protagonist comes off as a serious dick without meaning to

"always on my mind" at least doesn't try to sugarcoat what a shitty partner his guy has been. while it does seem to be asking to you to buy that "you were always on my mind" is supposed to cancel this all out, you have the option of reading this as being intentionally lame and insufficient. when billy comes off as a dick he usually THINKS he comes off as either a great guy, or an otm deliverer of righteous put-downs.

Compare "Leaving on a Jet Plane," where the speaker indicates that even though he's cheated on her many times, it's okay because those were meaningless flings.

the contrasting song that keeps popping into my head is actually Paul Simon's "Tenderness" from "There Goes Rhymin' Simon" (1973) - which doesn't bear too much musical similarity (acoustic piano instead of fender rhodes, for ex.) and is also different lyrically in that it's not about how much of a dick the narrator has been but is instead about how he could tolerate his partner's harsh honesty if it was tempered with an underlying sympathy, the titular tenderness. This is like the inverse of the other songs listed so far, where it's the aggrieved partner saying "I could put up with a lot of shit from you if I could tell you actually cared", but it's not rendered with any particular bitterness or anger, it's more of a sad-sack "why can't we just get along" appeal.

which seems both more grown-up and less assholish portrayal of an actual adult relationship than the BJ song

I always through Billy Joel's 'Honesty' from the next album was an answer to Simon's 'Tenderness'.

Simon: "Just give me some tenderness/Beneath your honesty"
Joel: "If you search for tenderness/It isn't hard to find.....Honesty is such a lonely word"

I have a whole album to catch up on but gotta say that "Just the Way You Are" is a gorgeous production and melody. The muted sound of the Rhodes downplays the interesting chords. I feel like this song required restraint that some artists wouldn't have. Once again, I try to not pay too much attention to the lyrics tho

So we got through the day of "Just the Way You Are" without anyone mentioning Chuck Klosterman? I've gotten the feeling over the years that he is less than beloved on ILX, but his piece on Billy (and particularly the parts on today's song, though the piece is more focused on Glass Houses overall) is still essential reading for any Joel fan.

I don't think it's online, and if I weren't currently in a different city as my books, I'd scan and link it. Maybe I still will a couple of albums from now...

Also, I think it's interesting/appropriate that people are praising the melody/production/arrangement/singing no matter what their take on the lyrics. Can we say that "Just the Way You Are" is the textbook definition of "soft rock" in the best possible way?

it's not even really rock! it's just soft

LITE FM?

(Un)Easy Listening

thanks for tuning into KSMSH smooshy music for soft lovers

Crypto, I know the klosterman piece you mean but deliberately haven't looked at it in the course of this discussion.

Speaking strictly for me, one could go on for ages about the lyrics. I know I have. and klosterman does. Rn I personally don't have a lot that is new or interesting to say, so it's refreshing to just be thinkin baout the tone of the sax or what Liberty is doing.

yeah i could live wo klosterman itt

I shall never speak of him again (itt).

<3

This fella is very talented ... and very meticulous.

He's got a whole channel of - I wouldn't even call them covers, they're more like recreations. Check 'em out by clicking on the video.

But here's JtWYA - complete with 10cc vox effects - as an instrumental:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CZj3VYr4WPw

Impressive and also.... Maybe it's churlish or sour-grapesy but I can't stay away from asking "Wow but why?" I mean, the record is widely available.

(Which is, tbf, my feeling about all covers/tributes that aim at precisely recreating a record. De gustibus, I guess.)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hxx8IWIvKg0

Scenes From An Italian Restaurant closes side one. I have no idea what to say, so here’s an album advertisement I neglected to post earlier, sorry for huge:

https://www.superseventies.com/oaaa/oaaa_joelbilly2.jpg

* On accordion, Dominic Cortese, who'll show up again on "Vienna," "Where's the Orchestra?" etc. You may have also heard him on Dylan's "Joey" and the Beauty and the Beast soundtrack.)

* This song isn’t on the original Greatest Hits I & II, but like “Captain Jack” and “The Entertainer” it was added for the CD version.

* ... can’t tell you more 'cause I told you already.

I had to think for a second about what SRO meant, ah the 70s.

The SRO line relates to something I thought of yesterday: that he played Carnegie Hall without any real hit songs (Piano Man the only one to break the top 40). Was he kind of the Jason Isbell of 1976, racking up enough fans to play big theaters?

Was he kind of the Jason Isbell of 1976

ha yeah he just played at a the palace theater here and i was like huh he's that big?

Billy's favourite Billy song. Possibly my favourite Billy song. If "Captain Jack" is his suburban take on "Walk on the Wild Side," this is his suburban take on "Bohemian Rhapsody;" I'd love to see a film in which it is put to some Wayne's World-style use.

If I had to think of the most "Billy Joel" Billy Joel song it would be this song.

I like it a lot, but don't like to listen to it because it gets stuck in my head for days.

This song isn’t on the original Greatest Hits I & II, but like “Captain Jack” and “The Entertainer” it was added for the CD version.

I forgot the tape version had some songs missing lol

"Yeah, I did catch up with Billy last time he was town, over at Bruno's. Boy, he sure did have a dirt to spill on Eddie and Brenda Palermo."

this is his suburban take on "Bohemian Rhapsody;" I

Also "A Day in the Life."

He was aiming for his own Abbey Road medley.

With, um, three songs instead of eight.

I'll be in the minority here and say Meh. It's three incomplete songs claiming a proggy profundity they haven't earned, just by virtue of being jammed together. The Brendur'n'Eddie section is the only one that could make it on its own as a pop song. And it probably would have done fine if it had been released on its own, but my ear would probably still think it wanted a trifle more baking.

"Whoa oh, whoa oh, whoa oh" does not a chorus make, not when you've set the lyrical bar as high as the verses are.

I love this song completely, but will acknowledge that there's not all that much there, or even a complete thought about how these three things are supposed to add up together... but that's never really bothered me about the Abbey Road medley, "Uncle Albert/Admiral Halsey," "Band on the Run," or "Venus and Mars/Rock Show." I like each piece, I like them together. Brenda and Eddie get the most attention, but I am a sucker for the delivery of "cold beer / hot lights / my sweet romantic teenage nights!" as cheesy as it is. One time that Billy's growly rock delivery doesn't distract me from the goings-on.

I'm sure this has been observed before, but since we were talking about Chuck Berry before, it does feel like the ballad of Brenda and Eddie is Joel's reconsideration of "You Never Can Tell," signaled by the unusual choice to focus on the gear purchased to kit out the first apartment (here coming off as kinda chintzy and unsatisfying rather than as the few but well-loved possessions of a couple in love).

The chronology has always confused me though. So it seems like they're high school sweethearts back in American Graffiti times, with the greasers and the car top down and all. They go steady for approximately fifteen years, which seems excessive but okay, getting married in July of 1975. But then "they'd had it already by the summer of 75" - so man for such a long courtship this falls apart fast! Amazing they even have time to fight when the money gets tight. Or are the car-top times just the early 70s? If so, how do the "greasers" fit in? It seems important that "the green" (presumably the "village green" from the previous segment) is kinda distant in time, unachievable now.

It's never occurred to me until writing this post, but are Brenda and Eddie in fact the old friends meeting up in the Italian restaurant? I'd be into that, adds a nice brush-a-tear-aside quality to the bookends, they couldn't make it work but they did indeed stay "the closest of friends" and even if their nostalgia for the glory days is a little sad, it's nice that they can still get together for some wine and conversation. Feels very Paul Simony, circa Hearts & Bones / Graceland.

"Scenes" to me has more in common with "Paradise by the Dashboard Light" than "Bohemian Rhapsody"
(i am a Meatloaf fan so i don't mean that as a diss)
the different narrative styles, thematic music to represent time/place, and relaying the breakdown of a relationship etc, plus the singer adopting a character etc

i really like this one a lot but boy the brenda & eddie section gets lodged in my brain like the craziest earworm

god I love the saxophone in the transition-interludes
gorgeous!!

Softening my previous stance. I think each COULD be its own song if it had a proper verse/chorus/bridge. The bottle of red/bottle of white, then the subsequent inversion of it, is clever. I too like the "sweet romantic" bit.

They're just insufficient wire on which to hang a song, and Billy is many things but he's not lazy. Maybe someone should write expanded versions (not me).

Damn. You went from calling it "a proggy profundity" to "maybe someone should write expanded versions."

Was not expecting that.

pplains, I think I meant that they seemed like incomplete songs that were strung together in an _attempt_ to seem proggy and profound. I don't mind song suites or long sectioned pieces in principle. I just don't think this one works all that well.

My idle fantasy that each segment could be expanded until it had the weight of a standalone song is predicated on the notion that they wpuld also be separated. sorry for being unclear.

I would be cool with this album losing a couple of tracks we're about to get to, and the whole second side is the expanded Italian Restaurant Suite (following in the footsteps of Suite: Judy Blue Eyes and the American City Suite).

"Three Meat Lasagna and Breadsticks"