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

I've been looking forward to this album since we started this thread because I love the style of the 6 (!) singles I know. Figured even the album tracks have to be decent here. "Easy Money" is not quite what I expected, especially for an album opener. I like the energy but it's a pretty uh easy song - the kind of song he could write in his sleep and toss on side 2 of any of the other albums we've heard. Agree that "Tell Her About It" would've been an excellent opener

As the opener that defines the record, stands out that:
- there’s no piano or guitar
- doesn’t sound like 1983

and then he should have returned, unannounced, 15 years later with a single, "a matter of trust," and then disappeared again

Is "Matter of Trust" his "Mixed Emotions"?

"River of Dreams" is, if he has any.

I link "Matter of Trust" and "Mixed Emotions" in my mind, stylistically at least. Videos are very similar IIRC which may contribute to that.

"Mixed Emotions" was the last top five in America of the Stones' career while The Bridge was a stopgap before the huge Storm Front, so it's not an ideal analogy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xci1a3yE0PM

An Innocent Man, title track and third single, hit #10 in the US and topped the Adult Contemporary Chart for one week before being dislodged by Christine McVie's "Got A Hold On Me." Warmed up by the preceding singles, it even got to #8 in the UK, not always Billy's best audience. That stat may include sales of a 4-song EP - packaged both as An Innocent Man: A Gift For Valentine's Day or An Innocent Man: A 12" EP of 4 Love Songs - which included three catalogue tracks seemingly chosen out of a hat ("Until the Night," "She's Always A Woman," and the live "You're My Home"). Maybe they were hoping to build his brand a bit and boost sales of old albums. Elsewhere, it was backed with a live rendition of "I'll Cry Instead" which I'll just link here instead of treating as a separate entry.

"An Innocent Man," despite its high chart performance, was left out of Greatest Hits I & II, but made it onto the third volume in 1997.

https://img.discogs.com/Gwt1h_rIS3mZQWu8BrYqX7FMJRY=/fit-in/259x194/filters:strip_icc():format(jpeg):mode_rgb():quality(90)/discogs-images/R-1403981-1357341164-8617.jpeg.jpg

https://img.discogs.com/M1LQRx6u7Pp8u136kYu0KUNWkiA=/fit-in/589x583/filters:strip_icc():format(jpeg):mode_rgb():quality(90)/discogs-images/R-2249550-1272296759.jpeg.jpg

https://img.discogs.com/omo93BS6DlUBBjlOHrs_ZEG4r9E=/fit-in/600x600/filters:strip_icc():format(jpeg):mode_rgb():quality(90)/discogs-images/R-476021-1121503126.jpg.jpg

Oh, I took "his 'Mixed Emotions'" to mean his attempt at being a relaxed, 40-ish "neighborhood dads get together and play in the garage for kicks sometimes" kind of guy.

and i would link them as late-ish career flashes of the spirit that made us fall in love with these guys in the first place.

I have a fondness for "An Innocent Man" thanks to the melody (speaking of Joe Jackson's influence) and the ease with which Joel goes up and down the scale. He can't sing this now.

Yeah, this is all about the melody for me, and specifically the rise up to the chorus - something really spectacular happening when he hits that unlikely note (having started way down with the "some people" bit) - really sells the sense of a hero taking a leap that he might not make. There's a worrisome Nice Guy potential in the lyric but I buy that he and this person have an actual relationship and that he's attempting sincerely to offer what he can, based on some understanding of her stated emotional needs. Anyway we've come some distance from the second-person address of "You May Be Right."

man, billy's having a blast singing this song

"Blue Bayou" bass line.

Huh! Wouldn't have thought of that, nice connection. Billy cites "Under the Boardwalk" as the direct inspiration.

'We Didn't Start the Fire' came on the radio earlier and I hated every single last fucking second of it.

Blue Bayou's closer to what I was thinking, Rikki Don't Lose That Number.

Agree with Alfred that this one is all about Billy's truly impressive vocal performance. I don't know if the orchestral sweep was necessary, but the strength of the vocal and the melody get me through.

He can't sing this now.

he hasn't been able to sing this for at least 25 years! crystal taliefero started singing the high note for him when she joined his touring band, which was circa 1990.

Billy cites "Under the Boardwalk" as the direct inspiration.

righteous brothers vibe, too.

I have a fondness for "An Innocent Man" thanks to the melody (speaking of Joe Jackson's influence)

funny that I never thought of this given my mentions of jj above but i never thought of this

Also: I think of myself as a Glass Houses guy but if I'm to be honest about my life in the 1980s I listened to this one about 100x more (and Nylon Curtain hardly at all)

god the melody on this is just the best. endless fun in the shower, if you're unafraid of disturbing the roommates when you reach the high-note moment of truth.

the craftsmanship is peak billy, both music and lyric. i love the way the rhyme scheme builds the same way the music builds. the verses are long, slow rhymes (long A, long B, long C, long B); you may not even notice he's rhyming at all the first time around. then he shortens up to an A-A rhyme scheme as he begins the bridge ("protecting yourself," "somebody else"). he shortens yet again to an internal rhyme as he goes back into the verse ("i'm not above making up for the love"), but then pulls back to the initial long, slow rhyme scheme as the the music pulls back, too. and then, in the final build toward the chorus, it's another internal rhyme, even closer than the previous one ("only willing to hear you cry/because I..."). and then the tension-release of the classic pop everything-rhymes chorus ("am," "man," "am," imperfect rhymes, but still).

great read. there's also a rhythmic shift along the way, with a steady patter of syllables in that first part (some-peo-ple-SAY that-the-bum-ba-duh-DUM).... then the same with more emphasis and a dramatic pause at the end of the line ("i-know-you're-on-ly-pro TEC TING YOUR SELF! (pause for breath) i-know-you're-thin-king-of-SOME BOD Y ELSE!"), then a little reprieve with the original rhythm again before the chorus, where we zoom out to a vocal wide shot: be-cause-I-am-an INN OH CENT MAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAN!

"tell her about it" gets similar mileage out of a dense, syllable-scattering verse followed by a very straightforward chorus. kid, i could go on and on, but all my advice can really be boiled down to four simple words...

and in that it's also a very close cousin to "Until the Night" of course.
Aged 13, this album came out at the same time as my taste fractured away from my parents' (Eurythmics' Sweet Dreams being the catalyst) and I remember being kind of horrified that they adored this throwback 50s/60s cheese pastiche instead of the new cold sounds I found so exciting. I dislike everything WMJ did from here onwards, not fair of course but I feel like with this record he really doubled down on the "doing it for the Boomers" sentiment expressed about the previous album.

I dunno! The next album has a not bad Ray Charles duet but is otherwise a straightforward 1986 rock album. Storm Front is a straightforward 1989 rock album. And on.

For sure, I just don't have any interest in MOR rock unless it's tinged with childhood nostalgia.

Good breakdown of the internal rhymes, fcc. I also love how dense the lyrics are and how many of the lines start well before the start of the measure. The verses have a calm but still somehow exciting quality. Always figured the inspiration was "Stand by Me" because of the strong bass line and strings

Cuz spot on about the rhymes. Although this is a fight I can lose / the accused... is my favorite. He could have flogged the trial metaphor but doesn't.

The local AOR station 98 Rock occasionally played this parody called "An Ignorant Man", made by one of their DJs. Quite amusing, and spot-on BJ vocals:

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

"Blue Bayou" bass line.

― morning wood truancy (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn)

Huh! Wouldn't have thought of that, nice connection. Billy cites "Under the Boardwalk" as the direct inspiration.

― Doctor Casino

Also some of the vibe of "Rikki Don't Lose that Number."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JUl4kxTfzKE

Instant doo-wop classic The Longest Time features a squadron of multi-tracked Billys in a near-a cappella arrangement (supported only by Stegmeyer's bass line and just a hint of Liberty's brushed snare). It is wonderful.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/b/bf/TheLongestTime.jpg

As the album's fourth single, supported by a must-see music video, it peaked at #14 on the Hot 100 and #1 on Adult Contemporary (where, with "Hello" it kept "Against All Odds" at #2). Not bad for a doo-wop number in 1984! A demo, The Prime of Your Life, revealed on the My Lives box, previews the verse melody with a completely different (and unfinished) lyric, some uncertainty about the key, and a conventional, indeed classicist Billy Joel arrangement. This clip of Billy talking about the album has all kinds of relevant reflections on this song, but I'd point you specifically to the stretch beginning at 3:33 where he plays this and "Uptown Girl" on the piano, in a "Mozartian" mode. Wow.

I was in a fraternity in college, and each year there was an annual "Greek Sing" in which all fraternities and sororities performed what were primarily a capella pieces with some minimal accompaniment. One year our segment consisted of this, accompanied solely by me on bass; "Leave It" by Yes, with an electric piano accompaniment; and "Under Pressure." We lost.

great set phil

i hear this song at least once every time i go to karaoke

xp even better: the arrangements were developed by one of our frat's two musical theater majors, who had a hell of a time getting us to understand all the parts and timing of "Leave It." But more importantly, he would later go on to teach music at a local high school, then go to prison for having sex with his female students!

Always wondered if this was done on purpose -

From yesterday's song:
Some people stay far away from the door
If there's a chance of it opening up
They hear a voice in the hall outside
And hope that it just passes by

From today's:
I'm that voice you're hearing in the hall

There are days when I might peg this as Billy Joel's greatest songwriting achievement. One of the rare revivalist songs that I believe would have been a hit - and a big one - when the genre was in full flower in the first place. The verse melody, winding up at the brilliantly flowing "what else could I do / I'm so inspired by you" part, is an incredible achievement... but all the little moves by the backing vocals are dead-on choices that move you forward and become headsticky in themselves. They have to be painstakingly crafted, but they come off as joyful and sweet and effortless, like the product of delighted improvisations as the tape runs in the studio - "ooh I know just what they'd have in one of those songs!"

Of many fine things about this song I will choose one (1) thing. There is a particular trick of skilled lyricists where the ending of one line blurs so seamlessly into the first that you have a word or syllable that does double duty, hopefully effortlessly.

Joel does it INSIDE A SYLLABLE with "For the longest/I'm that voice you're hearing in the hall."

The ending "t" of "longest" turns the word "I'm" into "time," which is coincidentally in the title of the song and I think we should take a moment to celebrate the cleverness of that lyrical turn.

The Cure's "Letter to Elise" has "Like throwing arms round/yesterday I stood and stared," where "yesterday" applies equally to both lines.

Elvis Costello has a few. "Why must she be the one that I had to love so/like candy"

Or "New Amsterdam/it's become much too much," where "..dam/it's" becomes "dammit." Honestly this is as close as I can come so I invite others to suggest similar feats of lyrical trickery.

wow, never connected the two voices in the hall! Feeling kind of dumb since that's a very specific lyrical choice. The emphasis on "voice" reminds me, once again, of Hall & Oates's marvelous "Diddy Doo Wop (I Hear The Voices)," probably the key precedent (1980) for this entire exercise. Perhaps Billy himself was the vaguely haunting voice at the subway stop; shocked to realize he may be driving Daryl Hall insane, he has retreated to the more private if somewhat vaguer setting of "the hall" and turned himself to romantic advances.

my elementary school chorus sang this, either third or fourth grade

I can't stand this one – and it hasn't gone away.

I'm always surprised to remember that "Tell Her About It" was the album's #1 cuz it's "The Longest Time" and "Uptown Girl" that have survived.

this one cracks me up and yeah this and Uptown Girl and maybe the Glass Houses singles are generally all I want from Billy. Youthful nostalgia wins again, I guess.

i am way behind so i’m just going to jump in here

i love this song so much, ever since i was little

when i was 10 i was staying over at my best friend’s house & her 15 yo brother & his friend sang this together just hanging out in their living room and i thought it was so cool, i never forgot it

i also get very corny sentimental over the lyrics, i love how he communicates a sincere feeling as well as pulling off the throwback doo-wop style so effortlessly, it works on all levels

gives me the same giddy feeling i get from Frankie Lymon’s “Why Do Fools Fall In Love” because there’s almost nothing in the world i love more than THAT song

my favorite thing is the shifting use of “longest time”

that hasnt happened for the longest time
i havent been there for the longest time
i intend to hold you for the longest time

<3

that part is poignant, agreed

Veg, right. FWIW "The Longest Time" is much more relatable lyrically than "An Innocent Man."

I mean, most of us - at any age! - can connect with "you're neat and I want to hold you" better than the contortions of "you keep sabotaging yourself because of past emotional traumas, but I am willing to wait through that because I'm not the one who hurt you."

Also look at the shifting attitudes toward innocence and experience. Compare the brash streetwise youths of "Only the Good Die Young"/"You May Be Right"/"Angry Young Man" with the knowing-adult "I am an Innocent Man" with the goofily-happy bit here: "Once I thought my innocence was gone, now I know that happiness goes on."

A Joel for all seasons.

yay welcome back veg, you have been missed!