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

Weird to hear the genesis of this as it goes from 52nd Street sitcom theme to sneery UK "punk" wannabe.

"the ostensible premise of Turnstiles was that BJ felt obliged to be at new york's side through its time of crisis,"
I really don't think was in the city during this time ...

nice link pplains, wow. i kinda like the sitcom theme one better! worth scrolling back in that youtube for some other treats. the dinky little "drum program built into the organ" demo of "the stranger" is real cute. the take of "stiletto" reminds me of whoever it was on this thread who said that the released version sounded like the vocal came in from a different approach to the song.

meanwhile: The Stranger turned 40 today. Rolling Stone has a little track-by-track feature, tho not much we haven't heard already here.

Here's another YouTube with Glass Houses demos, outtakes and unfinished mixes. The creaky demo of "Don't Ask Me Why" (then "Come On Tonight") starting at 15:45 has a nice kinda curdled quality to it though that might just be the recording quality. Interesting how much he seems to have been writing in the studio by this point. "Sleeping With The Television On" (21:53) is mostly there musically but almost all the lyrics are different and most of what's interesting about the final lyric isn't there... just filler and placeholders, maybe even ad-libs of generic song-stuff for a lot of it.

I'm kinda surprised this one has generated so much talk, it didn't really grab me either way

"I Don't Want to Be Alone": somehow I skipped this one when we covered it. Bites a lot of Elvis Costello but does it well. I like the guitar work

"Close to the Borderline": this just sucks. Usually there's something I like about each song but this is irredeemable for me. Hate the chorus, riff pattern gets old fast, and his singing is annoying. Surprised y'all like it

I dig this!!

J Geils + Styx is where my brain goes. Sliiightly punk but a watered down KMart punk

my other weird thought is that it gives me an Eagles vibe? not the sound so much as the feel. maybe cynical Billy venn diagram crosses over here very slightly

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

Through The Long Night closes Glass Houses with something very different from the blast of attitude that opened it.

Not what I pull out this album for, but it's nice I think. Reminds me a bit of "Summer's Day Song" on McCartney II, which came out a few months later.

lovely. and very very mccartney. i had completely forgotten about this one until i saw him play it the last time i saw him, two years ago at madison sq garden. my highlight of the night. and a wonderful, if unexpected, finale to my fave billy album. if i was being a tough professor, i'd grade the album A-minus.

J Geils + Styx

that's a good call.

Geils fits that Daryl Hall generational slot too - just a little older than Billy, was in his first bands in the mid-60s, arrived at new wave with multiple albums under his belt already but clearly found aspects of it that clicked with what he understood pop-rock songwriting to be.

Wau @ pplains link

through the long night is lovely

9/30/17 set list

"Miami 2017 (Seen The Lights Go Out On Broadway)"
"Pressure"
"Vienna"
"The Longest Time"
"The Entertainer"
"Zanzibar"
"The Boxer" (with Paul Simon)
"Late in the Evening" (with Paul Simon)
"Movin' Out (Anthony's Song)"
"The Downeaster Alexa"
"She's Always A Woman"
"Don't Ask Me Why"
"New York State of Mind" (with Miley Cyrus)
"Allentown"
"My Life"
"Sometimes a Fantasy"
"River of Dreams"
"Scenes from an Italian Restaurant"
"Piano Man"

Encore:
"You May Be Right" (with Paul Simon and Miley Cyrus)
"Uptown Girl"
"It's Still Rock & Roll To Me"
"Big Shot"
"Only The Good Die Young"

okay I would have been way into that

this really is the best billy joel album at least until the next one maybe. the bad songs are more innocuous than bad (or at least i don’t feel like i’m s u f f e r i n g through them like some of the deep cuts on 52nd street)

"Through the Long Nights" doesn't really feel like anything else on the album. It sounds like he deliberately composed it just to have a lullaby-like album closer, which may very well have been the case.

https://img.discogs.com/ZRWIfQIJPM5fTDeTqhvNzkqQxu0=/fit-in/600x606/filters:strip_icc():format(jpeg):mode_rgb():quality(90)/discogs-images/R-8096912-1455074790-9148.jpeg.jpg https://img.discogs.com/JNqmjQ2NMi0xr7FyqsnFqe3WlgI=/fit-in/600x613/filters:strip_icc():format(jpeg):mode_rgb():quality(90)/discogs-images/R-8096912-1455074794-3385.jpeg.jpg

https://img.discogs.com/uqnKGfmsPRpym6-RnvHrLCCJN1Q=/fit-in/600x609/filters:strip_icc():format(jpeg):mode_rgb():quality(90)/discogs-images/R-8096912-1455074809-9704.jpeg.jpg https://img.discogs.com/nEiyYWKIvtLRNDHMD8wk38biUIE=/fit-in/600x610/filters:strip_icc():format(jpeg):mode_rgb():quality(90)/discogs-images/R-8096912-1455074813-2564.jpeg.jpg

Drawn from arena and club stops on the Glass Houses tour the summer of 1980, Songs in the Attic served both as a stopgap release in the annual Billy Joel schedule, and a roundup of tracks from his first four LPs for the huge audience he'd acquired since The Stranger, now considerably enlivened by the energy and tightness of the well-established Billy Joel Band. Ironically, then, it's also our farewell to sax-and-organ man Richie Cannata, who left or was let go by the time of The Nylon Curtain.

The album was a success, peaking at #8 on the US charts, #3 in Japan, #9 in Australia, and respectably elsewhere. As singles, "Say Goodbye To Hollywood" and "She's Got A Way" peaked at #17 and #23 respectively. "You're My Home" seems not to have gotten a US release and was not a hit anywhere that it did come out. The album has been certified three times platinum - pretty good for a live disc, if not quite Frampton numbers.

I linked to these versions as we hit them along the way, and I'm certainly not going to do a song-by-song runthrough of this release, but since I'm under a deadline for the next couple of days, I figured I'd propose it for some general listening. As previously discussed, I've come to slightly favor the pre-Stranger 1977 Carnegie Hall recording for being just a little rougher and live-r feeling, but still, I think this thing is great. The tracklist follows below, but for another fannish thought-exercise: anything you'd swap out? Suppose it'd been a double LP (one disc of "arena" songs, another of "night club" numbers) - what's missing? I'll nominate "Travelin' Prayer," "The Entertainer," "Falling of the Rain," and what the hell, "Tomorrow is Today," assuming a serious rethink of that Joe Cocker bridge...

1. "Miami 2017 (Seen the Lights Go Out on Broadway)" - from Turnstiles
2. "Summer, Highland Falls" - from Turnstiles
3. "Streetlife Serenader" - from Streetlife Serenade
4. "Los Angelenos" - from Streetlife Serenade
5. "She's Got a Way" - from Cold Spring Harbor
6. "Everybody Loves You Now" - from Cold Spring Harbor
7. "Say Goodbye to Hollywood" - from Turnstiles
8. "Captain Jack" - from Piano Man
9. "You're My Home" - from Piano Man
10. "The Ballad of Billy the Kid" - from Piano Man
11. "I've Loved These Days" - from Turnstiles

BTW, YouTube has a couple people hawking "outtakes" from this album - sometimes miscellaneous cuts from the editing room, sometimes whole sets from the tour. I haven't really delved into this, but the version of "You May Be Right" that opens this set is pretty cool, and there's a hot "I'll Cry Instead" at 38:25.

1. never listened to any Billy Joel album ever until my band accompanied Jonathan Coulton (there's a name you don't read on ILM much, approvingly or otherwise) on the songs from GH. "through the long night" was BY FAR the hardest to learn and then to play.

2. in the front rank of 70s-80s mainstream rock guys and their bands, the ones in which the backing guys have the greatest name recognition, in descending order…
a.) E Street Band
b.) heartbreakers
c.) tie for Seger & the Silver Bullet Band, John Camp Cougar Melon's band and BIlly's guys…

Liberty is the only one a "rock fan" of the time and afterward would reasonably be expected to know in Billy's Band (aronoff is the only well known one for JCM,. Do Billy stans like FCC have other longtime favorites in his bands? are there any such guys for Seger?

strongly disagree on Mellencamp considering he had both Lisa Germano and Kenny Aronoff in his peak era bands

Prince's band has provided the world with some personalities as well.

There's no Angry Young Man or New York State of Mind of Songs in the Attic - they seem like the biggest omissions.

It's weird because I always THINK there's an "Angry Young Man" on there! Maybe he felt satisfied that he'd gotten the band's sound down on record on Turnstiles for that one -- whereas "Say Goodbye To Hollywood" and "Miami 2017" on the LP are really quite anemic-sounding.

I mentioned this way back when, but: the "Say Goodbye To Hollywood" on the Greatest Hits is this version - as was "She's Got A Way," when it got added for the CD release.

Strongly prefer the SITA "She's Got a Way."

o Billy stans like FCC have other longtime favorites in his bands? are there any such guys for Seger?

for bllly: liberty was always #1, but richie was always a fan favorite, too. as a saxophonist, he got a lot of featured spots, particularly on "new york state of mind." but maybe saxophonists are always the fan favorite: the one guy i could name from the silver bullet band is alto reed (the best-named sideman in the history of rock).

i believe the fan favorites in billy's bands now are mike delguidice and crystal taliefero. mike came to billy's attention as the frontman of billy cover band big shot, and he continues to play with big shot even while playing guitar and singing harmonies for the actual big shot his own band plays tribute to. crystal first came to prominence as a member of john melon cougar camp's band, where she played alongside the above-mentioned kenny aronoff and lisa germano.

where does crazy horse fit in the 70s/80s mainstream rock sideman rankings? do regular rock fans only know the name "crazy horse," or could they name the players?

Aren't Talbot, Sampedro, et. al. terrible players by any standard that isn't Neil Young's (I love them).

they're certainly less traditionally/technically gifted than many of their peers. i love them too. but i believe the question here was about name recognition, not chops.

i would add under to the bands tied in "c" any backing band that had waddy wachtel in it.

elton's guys too - dee and nigel surely known to EJ fans but nobody else.

ha and by dee I mean davey, proving the point

currently watching a live facebook feed of the lords of 52nd street (incl. liberty, richie and russell javors) playing "all for leyna."

"Through the Long Night" is a sweet closer. Glass Houses was a great album overall, certainly my second favorite after The Stranger - New Wave was kind to him

what up Doc

Soon!! Probably tomorrow AM actually... Sorry, been a packed week between finishing up a lecture and grading stuff. If you like, think of this as a simulation of the long writing and recording process for our next album...

oh sweet i'm gonna listen to songs in the attic tonight in preparation

can i just say that songs in the attic has the stupidest sleeve

billy: "you thought you could hide from me, songs, but i found you, in this attic... and all it took was my big flashlight"

haha yeah it's dumb. i assume it's supposed to be a ghost story? like oh I thought I heard something... almost like.... a song? but where was it coming from?

also makes me think maybe it started out as just an odds-n-sods comp and became a live album late in the process or something. which doesn't seem likely but boy is it not designed to look like a live album.

I'd no idea Attic was so popular.

I'd never heard of this album before and everything about it - the structure, the general idea, the sleeve, the actual tunes - sounds um misguided to put it mildly.

Ahhhh I think it's a cool idea! Lots of bands do some version of "here's the best stuff from before we reached our current popularity" right? And I do think most or all of these versions are solid improvements on the originals.

I wonder to what extent it influenced REM in the Attic compilation.

I wish Billy, too, had covered "Toys in the Attic," but changed the name for the album's sake.

i think it’s a cool idea too. and he pretty much pulled it off, all these songs sound better here

I'm gonna add "Mexican Connection," "Why Judy Why," and "Stop in Nevada" to my fantasy two-disc version of this album. Hell, I wouldn't even mind a big, bellowing, crowd-pleasing "Captain Jack.". Maybe some could get the Glass Houses style treatment; throw in a couple covers like that "I'll Cry Instead" and my imagined Aerosmith travesty and it's a real fun evening of Billy.

re sleeve: no guys the PIANO is haunted & it’s playing the songs in the attic

gu gu gu ghoooosts

lol wait captain jack is already on there what am I talking about

well it could be bigger and more indulgent I guess. or a lean, neurotic, cars-style rendition to try and grab the new fans

i'm picturing the chorus riff like the opening of "Let's Go"

bwehhh, bweh bweh BWAH bwah, BWHUMMH bwuh bwuh

haha I was gonna say, the live CJ is all I remember from this album, it was a big radio thing when I was a radio-listening teenager

i am way behind, kinda fell off after Petty's death, gotta study up