Why Billy?

Once in a blue moon, I get asked the question that, for a change, I can sum up in a sentence. “Why do you like Billy Joel?” For the sake of this blog, here’s the long answer.

The love affair with Billy Joel was seeded on two fronts. The first, I blame solely on my brother. Being the younger brother, I absorbed a lot of his interests, especially when it came to music. He controlled the radio in the room we shared growing up. What he listened to would be the lion share of my musical education. I remember him making mix tapes, taping things off the radio (like the 1987 Top 40 Countdown on the old Eagle 106 with John Lander and the Nut Hut), taping theme songs off the TV. He bought cassingles (albums were too much money) and I played them on our stereo system and boom box during my free time. The selection was deeply rooted in Top 40. I remember being in the fifth grade and listening to Paula Abdul, Young MC, Rob Base and DJ EZ Rock, Was Not Was, Michael Jackson, Dee-Lite, and so on. Lots and lots of pop music that when I hear it to this day, i’m immediately transported back to my room. Once he got into high school, he was turned on to Howard Stern and so began listening to him on 94 WYSP in Philly. When Stern signed off, ‘YSP played classic rock the rest of the day. Maybe he just didn’t bother changing the station, but classic rock was now being played. He got into it, and so I was into it... or at least trying to keep up. ‘YSP played a good bit of Billy Joel. I had known who Billy Joel was, having a crudely labeled taped copy of Storm Front in our nightstand drawer of cassettes. You had to have “We Didn’t Start the Fire” in some form. Shit, teachers were using that to quiz kids in history classes all over the country. But that was 1990. I was at least aware of his existence. I knew there was his Greatest Hits on cassette lying around somewhere. It didn’t take hold yet.

For some reason, my brother collected theme songs from TV shows (remember theme songs???). He’d rig up the boombox to the TV and record the theme in real time when the show came on. Every show, new and old, that we liked of course, was taped. One of the show themes he taped was “Bosom Buddies.” A you may well know, Billy Joel’s “My Life” was poorly redone as the theme of the show. I don’t know when I realized it, but at some point I found out shortly after that the original version was on that greatest hits tape. I popped that cassette in and listened. I liked it. What else was on the tape? “Hey, I recognize this...”

The second front started with piano lessons. Off and on through grade school I took piano lessons from a variety of teachers. I wanted to play guitar since I was little. I even got a Dukes of Hazzard toy guitar for a birthday present. I fucked myself up early on mimicking guitar playing on the TV. Some children’s show was on, a band was playing, and I mirrored the image of the guitarist. Because of that move I pulled when i was five, to this day, I air guitar left-handed (there’s your Fun Fact for the day). I tried playing Guitar Hero the same way, but the whammy bar gets in the way and I’m better off playing right-handed. But if you see me now, I still air guitar left-handed. And I’m fucking good. I change chords and everything. Despite my WANT to play guitar, that didn’t happen. There’s an upright piano in the living room and I’m sure my parents didn’t want to spring for a guitar, too. Piano lessons for my brother went in one ear and out the other, so i was next in line. I enjoyed it, as much as a ten year-old can enjoy piano lessons with almost zero appreciation of music. I could play the music ok, but I didn’t necessarily care for it. Doing piano exercises from the Thompson series of books, A Dozen A Day, and others really made me see this as a chore more than anything. I want to play Wiffle Ball, not the piano. My last piano teacher, Mrs. Geiser, took a different approach. I get to pick the songs I wanted to play. Being well versed in theme songs, I chose those. The themes from Hill Street Blues and Cheers were my favorites. She’d then throw in a Mozart piece that she claimed was similar in style and I picked up on that, too, and enjoyed it. When it came time to pick a new song, she presented “Piano Man”. I kinda sorta knew the song. Listening to radio and at least acknowledging the existence of Billy Joel, I knew of the man, so in the very least I recognized the author. That was good enough for me. Let’s do it. As I worked through the song, the Bosom Buddies taping happened. When I found out that “Piano Man” was on that cassette, that was the beginning of the end. I got hooked.

From that flashpoint in 1992 to the middle of 1994, I transitioned from grade school to high school. High school was very, very different from my lilly-white education I received. Grade school was a small Catholic elementary school with fifty-nine kids in my graduating class. All white, all from my neighborhood, almost totally insulated from the rest of the city. My freshman year of high school had close to eight hundred kids in my class. All nationalities were represented. I had to ride public transportation to school. I knew no one. Zero. I was totally alone and had to sink or swim. Worse, I was thirteen years-old, and I looked nine. The only companion I had with me on those rides on the bus was my walkman listening to Stern in the morning, and Billy Joel on the way home. Those first couple months in the fall of ’93, I was armed with a small collection of CDs of Billy Joel CDs I had purchased since ’92. It began with Greatest Hits, then River of Dreams came out right before high school started, and slowly but surely I picked off album after album, one by one.

I absorbed every album. Purchasing a new one was such a treat to load up in the CD player and charter undiscovered territory (sans the tracks already on the greatest hits discs). I marveled at how many songs I was familiar with, but never matched a name (or face) to the song. All those songs like “Uptown Girl” and “The Longest Time” I had heard before, just never knew it was Billy Joel. I read up about his career. I would read message boards on the old Prodigy online service (the precursor to AOL! My old prodigy ID was dxmd90c. We paid per email. 20 cents each.) and discussing his music with people way, way, way older than me. Classmates in high school knew about his music and I’d make friends through those discussions. I even met girls. Billy Joel was my all-time greatest pickup line. How I initially found out was pure luck.

In my freshman year of high school, I had seventh-period lunch. Seventh-period was the last period of the day, so since I had lunch, I was free to go at 1:50p instead of staying until the bell rang at the end of school. I often skipped out early. When the second semester rolled around in spring of ’94, I had begun to become friends with people in class and a few of them had my same lunch period. They didn’t leave early, instead waiting for their friends to get out of class. They invited me to hang out. One of the girls in the group, Kathleen, had my same Italian class. She sat in the front, I sat all the way in the back, so we never talked until the seventh-period hangout. That first time, I walk to the patio where we all were. She asked me what I was listening to. I told her it was Billy Joel. She said she liked him, too, and that her favorite song was “Honesty”. I told her I was listening to a live version that would blow her away. I had the Russian concert CD on me. The version of “Honesty” on that album is still one of my three favorite tracks ever. It was one of those songs that struck me the second I listened to it months prior. I give her my headphones to listen to the song and her eyes lit up. She immediately asked to borrow the CD. My heart crushed hard, and Billy Joel made that happen.

“Hey, you like Billy Joel?” became an inside joke with my friends, since they figured it was my only pickup line. One of my all-time greatest stories involved meeting a girl on the boardwalk of Wildwood because I asked the question, “Hey do you like Billy Joel?” (I’d tell that story now, but we’ll get way off-topic and I don’t think you have an hour to read the whole thing). It was effective! I met people in general, not just girls, because I always had him in my CD player. Even when I moved away to college, when you have to setup your posters in your dorm to show your allegiance, Billy, along with The Beatles, made me feel like I was showing off my allegiance and uniqueness on a floor dominated by Dave Matthews, Bob Marley posters, and dudes listening to Creed. Fuck that, you poseurs. I’ll fire up “Uptown Girl” with pride and rock out (yes, I know... "Uptown Girl" and "rocking out" should never be in the same sentence, but you know what I mean).

Billy Joel started the love affair with The Beatles. I had obviously heard of The Beatles, but never went beyond knowing “She Loves You” and “Hey Jude”. The red and blue compilations were somewhere i the house, too, but never got around to them. During the Billy Joel absorption period, there was a lecture he was giving and explained his love for The Beatles and proceeded to play a few selections, including his interpretation of side two of Abbey Road. I immediately sought out that album, but since I blew all my money on the Joel discs, I asked my friend’s dad (or did I?) to borrow his vinyl copy, along with a couple other albums (Hey Jude and McCartney). And so began the snowball effect again, only this time with The Beatles. I ripped through all the albums, read up on the backstory, the breakup, the incredible transformation from boy band to rock’s elder statesmen. I dove headfirst, and for a while, ignored Billy Joel while I built up the collection of The Beatles. By the time the Anthology series came out in 1995, I had the albums and was fully immersed in the Fab Four.

I fully acknowledge The Beatles are the best pop/rock act ever. There’s not a question about it at all. For those that fall in the Rolling Stones camp, Pink Floyd, AC/DC, or any other group, you’re merely fooling yourself. As far as influence, innovation, trailblazing, and flat out quality, nobody beats The Beatles. You can love someone else, but not to respect The Beatles as the best ever would be silly. There is a reason why everyone says they’re the best ever. It’s because it’s true. Side two of Abbey Road is a joy, Rubber Soul and Revolver captures The Beatles at their tightest, the White Album shows their versatility. Even their boy band era is simple, but effective pop music, with some really great songs that were written by them. They were the first major act to write all their own songs. It was so uncommon in the early 60s for that to happen. I’m proud to say that The Holy Trinity writes their own music.

Bruce Springsteen, the last component of The Trinity, happened fairly recently. Again, his music was always around, just never delved into. His faulty Greatest Hits disc was had when it was released in the 90s with “Philadelphia” as the main track on it. Born to Run was purchased at some point afterwards, simply because it was an iconic album and felt I should have. In fact, the song “Born to Run” has a special place in my history. In June of 2001, I’m driving in the express lanes of Roosevelt Boulevard in Philly, heading south towards the Grant Avenue intersection. I was the only car in my lane and approaching a red light. As I’m coasting to the light, “Born to Run” kicks in on the CD player of my parent’s VW Passat I’m driving just as the light flips to green. Four seconds later, metal crunches on metal as I t-boned some jackass who ran a red arrow in front of me. Seat belts may have saved my life, but the car was totaled. I miss that car. And Springsteen was there when it died.

Springsteen laid fallow for years, though. It wasn’t until maybe 2007 when I really started to really get into his catalog. The Magic album came out, and once again, dove head first, shut of the rest of the music I was listening to out of my life to absorb The Boss. I guess I felt like it was a good time to get into his music, especially when all the albums were on mp3 at the radio station. I didn't have to spend any money this time. I'd save that for the concerts. As I listened, it got to be so much that some were questioning if I made a permanent move and declared sole allegiance to Bruuuuucccce. Bruce is in The Holy Trinity. But he’s not The One. I remember answering that question if I had strayed from my first love, Billy Joel, to go to Springsteen full time. Um... no.

The Beatles and Bruce Springsteen are wonderful to me They are the other two parts to my Holy Trinity of music. Objectively, Bruce and The Beatles are better than Billy Joel. Bruce is a better performer, still a relevant artist, lots of quality output, certainly romanticized more in the press than Billy Joel, and more versatile. The Beatles, as I stated before, are the best. No one will match or exceed them. The melodies, the Lennon/McCartney dynamic, their eclectic works... you’ll never see anything like that again. Ever. How silly, when you look back on it, that the fucking bay City Rollers were being hailed as “The Next Beatles?” That’s what Quaaludes did to you in the 70s. It turned you into a retard making retard statements like that. So in this Trinity, Billy Joel would sound like a distant third. But his music is first by leaps and bounds.

To me, there is a distinct difference, between the three for what I expect from them. The Beatles were all over the map in terms of style, voice, and purpose. You could get great love songs from them, and the next track it’s “Revolution 9.” That’s just the nature of four different people’s input into music. They are great songs, and I latch onto some of them, but they were a hit factory. Springsteen is a bit closer in personal writing, but I always felt the difference between him and Billy Joel was that if Springsteen was saying “I...”, he was in character. A lot of his songs play out like Broadway plays. He’s a character going through x,y, and z. Sometimes the real Bruce comes out, maybe not. That’s just my perception. Maybe it’s him all along? Billy is the guy who tells stories about himself. When he says “I...”, that’s Billy talking. Maybe he’ll use characters to represent himself, not the other way around.

Liberty Devitto, Billy’s old drummer, quoted his cousin by saying, “It’s amazing what he can say in three minutes, what I’ve been thinking for months... and say it exactly how I wanted to say it.” Whether it be the lyrics, the music, or both, Billy Joel’s music just speaks to me. You almost can’t describe it (but I’ll try it anyway). I hear my own stories in his songs. I feel the passion for music through his playing. I hear “Miami 2017” from Songs in the Attic and I marvel at the passion and I want to match it. “And So It Goes” is my exposed, vulnerable heart. “If I Only Had the Words” and “Sleeping with the Television On” from Glass Houses read my mind, yet I always know that “Vienna” will wait for me. “I Go to Extremes” and “Summer, Highland Falls” is my manic side, and “You’re My Home” just makes my soul ache.

I know I’m going on and on about Billy Joel, but that’s really not the point of all this when you really get right down to it. You may have a different artist that you feel the same way. It’s not who, but why. It’s the passion behind it. That’s what music is supposed to do. Evoke emotion. Stir passion. Inspire. It should make you feel. It has inspired me to write music, lame poetry, blog entries... expressing myself. It’s a getaway from the everyday and a destination of where I want to be in life. His music helped me discover other artists, and others like him. I don’t know if I did a good job explaining this, or going over the whole backstory. My mind is hazy trying to piece events from over twenty years ago and this terrible wine I’m drinking at 2am isn’t helping at all.

I’ll put it this way to sum up... Ever be in a good mood and you just had to put on some music? What about when you’re in an angry mood? Or when everything seems to be going to shit and you just want to cry your eyes out? There’s been many times like that. It would be me, headphones, and music pumping through for hours on end in the dark. And especially when it was Billy Joel pounding my eardums, it was because he knew of my happiness. He felt my pain. He knew what I was feeling at the time. That’s incredibly comforting.

He understood.

Still does.