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

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"

You were clear, Puffin. I was a bit snappy since I'm still reeling from the Fight Clubesque theory DC put out there about Brenda and Eddie awhile ago.

the third movement of the 'bottle of red' cycle, with the attila organs and billy singing in that fictitious "greaser language" over all those crazy fills from liberty... all time, man

Love the whole "bottle of red" scene the band puts on during the intro:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TyFW2c7a27c

the line about the engineer boots always gets me

Love this song so much, almost certainly my favorite Billy Joel song. The transitions are smooth enough that the disjointed sections sound of a piece. The "Brenda and Eddie" section is best, but there's some great highlights like the sax and woodwind solos and the part where he's pounding the low piano notes. I also like the switch between first person, second person, and third person in the lyrics. Feels like a whole world in one song

Fight Clubesque theory

Wait, did DC posit that Brenda and Eddie are both Edward Norton?

this is like the end of the Usual Suspects...woah

I'm definitely on board with this theory. let's call the middle section couple "Brenda and Eddie Prime"...

so anyway, we have some clues, the village green where the couple in the current day timeline hung out listening to songs about New Orleans, the same green Brenda & Eddie went back to but can never go back to again

I believe the couple in the present time at the Italian restaurant is an older version of Brenda and Eddie Prime, I think this in lyric the mask slips:

Nobody looked any finer
Or was more of a hit at the
Parkway Diner
We never knew we could want more
Than that out of life

I feel like the last line is a tell they are talking about themselves

as to the apparent extreme brevity of this summer of 75 marriage, how do they get hitched and everything falls apart so fast?

I'm wondering if the "Brenda and Eddie had had it already by the summer of 75", this again is not as literal as observational (again with the perspective of time passed that current day restaurant B&E have).....but I think this means that the marriage was actually a last ditch effort to save a failing relationship, even if Brenda & Eddie Prime didn't realize it at the time, the current day B&E realize this in retrospect....

I like that! man, this song is really starting to come together for me.

unrelated trivia: the first draft line was "things are okay in Oyster Bay."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wccRif2DaGs

Vienna opens side two with another fan favorite (though this is one of my token "never done much for me" numbers). I suspect its high profile stems at least in part to its being the B-side to "She's Always A Woman." In recent years - perhaps aided by its use in 13 Going On 30 - it's had a minor renaissance with covers by Mac Miller and Ariana Grande.

Yeah, this one always was, and remains for me, a big pile of meh. As for its "fan favourite" status, I can only imagine that it's coasting on the momentum of the rest of The Stranger (which is otherwise killer for at least the first 2/3 of the album).

i like this song a lot (maybe bc of its use in 13 going on 30) but i can understand why people think there's not much to it (there isn't)

Thanks to One Final Serenade, I discovered this fan film with a lot of nicely-shot Mumbai street footage, which suggests to me that this is a song that maybe means less to aging hipsters like me and Billy, and more to young folks needing the reminder that it's okay to slow down. Which is who Billy was trying to reach in the song I guess, so it's cool that people still find it and relate to it.

The choice of Vienna as locale is apparently based on the fact that that's where Billy's dad was from, and where he moved after splitting from his mom. According to the oft-told lore, Billy was visiting him and noticed an old woman sweeping the sidewalk; a chat with Dad about this sparked a realization that pop culture overemphasizes the youth years and throws away all the rest of a lifetime. Similar impulse as all the old-folks stuff on Simon & Garfunkel's Bookends, though that's more awkwardly "young poet tries to grapple with the idea that he will someday be old." Anyway I really dig it as a basis for a song, I just get a little bored by the ballad-by-numbers vibe and the little "see, it's European!" accents with the accordion.

(btw, since I suspect much of the USA ilxor contingent is taking advantage of the long weekend, imma hold off on the next song until Tuesday)

ILM waits for you.

Aw, tomorrow being Sunday was going to be perfect for the next one.

This is the first time I've heard this and I gotta say I really love it.

His voice is beautiful here, so bright! And I love the lyrics & the melody. Home-run for me. Easy. I'm not even mad at the accordion-flair.

feelin you today, veg - brenda rinetti earworm has been in full effect for like twelve hours.

key as always is the verse-ending line. SUUURE that BRENDA RINETTI would ALways know HOW to surVIVE. what a fantastic hook. really can't overstate how much stronger the hook-making is on turnstiles and this album than on streetlife and even the better half of piano man. I can admit there are still structural weaknesses here and there, but the earworminess and quantity of the hooks... he'd flowered. though I still want to believe the band is playing a role here.

http://images.45cat.com/billy-joel-only-the-good-die-young-cbs-2.jpg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Crif5E67ar0

Only The Good Die Young, not to be confused with the Iron Maiden song of the same name, was the third single off of The Stranger, backed with "Get It Right The First Time." It had the weakest performance from the LP, peaking at #24 on the Hot 100 - still one slot higher than "Piano Man" so I'm sure no one was complaining. A #18 in Canada was its best performance overall. It may have gotten a small boost from Joel's SNL performance (when supposedly, Billy had been asked not to perform it and had even rehearsed another song to fake Lorne Michaels out). It's a nice enough performance of the song - nevermind the weird website hosting the video - but mainly, you get to see Richie Cannata jumping up from the organ to play the sax solo. Love it.

Per Wiki, Attempts to censor the song only made it more popular, after religious groups considered it anti-Catholic,[3] and pressured radio stations to remove it from their playlists,[2] which Billy plausibly claims was a sales boon. Whether anyone pointed out the larger problem of it being a song about a guy relentlessly pursuing sex with a young woman is unclear. It never bothered me as a kid because it was hooky as hell, and I was both an oblivious cis dude and a pre-teen who didn't even really register the plot. It kinda leaps out at me now. There are probably more charitable readings - here's Melissa Etheridge covering it, with an introduction that asserts that "back in high school, this was a very definite emotion of mine." And of course, for all we know, Virginia (named for a real Virginia that Joel knew in high school) could be totally into it - or rolling her eyes at his desperate attempts to convince her that he spends his nights running "with a dangerous crowd," rather than getting picked up from piano lessons by his mom.

If you're looking for a different angle - or you're one of this thread's many devoted fans of "All You Wanna Do Is Dance," then you simply must check out this early, reggae-styled take, including brief mid-song commentary from Billy. Kind of an amazing document of how much these things grow in the studio - apart from the huge style shift, several of the most compelling features of the song just aren't there yet. Reportedly, Liberty DeVitto axed the whole approach, telling Billy something to the effect of "the closest you've been to Jamaica is the Jamaica Avenue BMT." The released version is take three.

https://img.discogs.com/uBkVooUblj7r1Yb2Y71XvYIcNMo=/fit-in/600x600/filters:strip_icc():format(jpeg):mode_rgb():quality(90)/discogs-images/R-8912552-1471333418-2661.jpeg.jpg

I love the exuberant horn action on this track, totally life-affirming

then you simply must check out this early, reggae-styled take

weirdly unsurprised, as i was focusing on devitto's drums this listen and thought "huh, if the beat shifted and slowed a little this would be a reggae jam"