May 9, 2008
It’s Billy Joel’s birthday today.
A lot of people see him as a schlockmeister-pumping out radio friendly formula pop for the masses. Which he was, at times, to be sure-“An Innocent Man” was an album you could scarcely get away from for a couple of summers, with hit after video laden hit. And I have to admit, as big of a fan as I am, there are a handful of songs, (“She’s Always A Woman”, “Just The Way You Are”, “We Didn’t Start The Fire”), I could go the rest of my life without hearing again.
I have loved Billy Joel’s music since a friend in high school introduced him to me during my sophomore year. I had heard of him, of course-if you were sentient during the 1980s and near a radio or television, you recognized Billy Joel-but something about his harder edged, more emotional stuff touched a chord in my metalhead heart.
Since then, I quickly swallowed and committed to memory everything he had ever recorded-B sides, live tracks, everything. With the advent of the Internet and box sets, this process has become much easier, but my friend and I went to Central Square in Cambridge, Massachusetts, back in the day, to find one missing single that he had found in a discography in a cheap photo biography he had bought. It was deeply amusing to me that, subsequent to his tireless efforts to collect all of Billy’s recordings, they were all published in a box set a few winters ago, which I, of course, bought.
If I had to take the recordings of one person or group with me into lifetime solitary confinement, it would without question be Billy Joel. He has turned a bit cranky in his dotage (he’s 59, according to NPR), but he has brought me more joy than nearly any artist I can think of. I raise a rhetorical glass in his honor today. (I don’t drink.)
In the sixth, Boston leads Minnesota, 6-5. I'm pretty sure I'm going to be recapping this one tomorrow, as I am fading fast.
I love Billy Joel......I HATE that he is married to a 13 year old. It wigs me out....he is like 60. That is sooo pedophilicious and sooo mid-life crisis.....get over it already.
ReplyDeleteWell, I don't understand my own marriage, so I try very hard not to criticize anyone else's.
ReplyDeleteAnd if I were a fairly wealthy rock star, and 20 year old art students were willing to pretend they were attracted to me, I'm not sure I wouldn't let them.
We're men-we're simple like that.
And, not that you ever hear about it in reverse, but I'd sure return Candace Bergen's, or Tina Turner's, or Jamie Lee Curtis', phone calls.
If I weren't already married to the most beautiful woman in the world, that is.
(Hey, she reads blogs too, you know.)
Loved the comments! I have always loved Billy JOel, in the background. He is an interesting mix, in that I think no one ever took him so seriously, but yet his songs are unforgettable. I do love She's Always a Woman, do not like We didn't start the Fire, but tend to not like music trying to make a statement. If it just happens to, well that is great, but when they set out for it, I'm bored. Thanks for the trip down memory lane.
ReplyDeleteI do think that enough women have jumped on the date younger men bandwagon, that I am almost okay with the trend.