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

He looks like he's taking a real painful onstage dump on that 7" cover

This is really bad, two-note hook that goes nowhere. Video is A+ hilarious though, "cool" these guys were not.

"Big Shot" annoys the hell out out of me -- "Bennie and the Jets" covered in snot.

Both songs covered by the Beastie Boys!

More fun from http://www.popspotsnyc.com/billy_joel_52nd_street/

Billy is so much better at snotty lyrics than romantic or serious lyrics. "Big Shot" is not really a favorite, but there's a few sharp lines in this and he also hits the delivery. I don't know much of this is aimed at himself (though it can easily be read that way) - are there many songs of his where he is self-aware and/or self-deprecating? I can't think of them, and I've never heard the song that way

Well, not counting things like the Stranger kicking him right between the eyes, "Angry Young Man" has a similar sympathetic "it's really about him" fan reading, with a similar weakness - "go to his grave as an angry old man" and "Halston dress" make it sorta unlikely that this is supposed to be the narrator.

The Halston and Elaine's namechecks are kinda clunky too but the song's Bennie & The Jets style bounce still makes me happy.

Man, the PopSpots for this one is bonkers, hats off to that guy. Tracking down college librarians and old hands who remember the coffee shop and shit... that's cool.

So the trumpet apparently belonged to Freddie Hubbard (who shows up later on the album). Billy says in the 2016 Sirius clips that he never knows what to do with his hands in photo shoots, without the piano, and clearly this is a super hurried shoot since they just went straight downstairs from either the studio or the label (both on 52nd Street). So apparently they were just kind of casting about for something he could hold and probably the trumpet fit the bill being both jazzy and 52nd-Street-ish, and not a normal part of the Billy Joel band/sound. Kinda wish he'd gone with one of the early keytars.

That reminds me - RIP Billy's Moog! I don't think we heard it anywhere on The Stranger. I wonder if Joel was just tired of it or if it was, like, Phil Ramone's one condition for recording.

yeah RIP moog :D

yeah that photo blog is amazing, kudos

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R4gOIt-M02A

After that rockin' opener, Honesty, like the intro to "The Stranger," reassures us that the Piano Man is still in the house. Later referred to by Joel as "the most bullshit song I ever wrote," it apparently got its lyric written quickly in order to fend off Liberty DeVitto singing the title line as "sodomy."

It was the album's third single, oddly backed with either "Root Beer Rag" or "Mexican Connection." It peaked at a respectable #24 (same as "Only The Good Die Young") going Top Ten on Easy Listening (aka "Hot Adult Contemporary" as of 1979) and to #1 in France. Though nominated for a Grammy for Song of the Year, it never had a chance with competition including "I Will Survive" and "Chuck E.'s In Love." "What A Fool Believes" took the crown and I can't really argue. Ultimately, it would be his biggest hit not to be included on the original Greatest Hits package, except in some overseas editions where it replaces "Don't Ask Me Why." (The CD reissue added it back in.)

There's another music video but it isn't much to look at - just a straight run through the song.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/a/a5/Honesty_single.jpg

They really got their money's worth out of what must have been a ten-minute photo shoot with that trumpet... fifteen if they stopped to grab a coffee before heading back to the elevator.

apparently they were just kind of casting about for something he could hold and probably the trumpet fit the bill being both jazzy and 52nd-Street-ish, and not a normal part of the Billy Joel band/sound.

also, trumpets were kind of a thing at that exact moment. maynard ferguson, the "rocky" theme, chuck mangione (ok not a trumpet but still), randy brecker, all sorts of groups w/brass sections and jazz and jazz fusiony pretensions. and billy definitely appealed to that crowd.

only really familiar with songs in the attic, which i used to borrow from my dad when i was in middle school. been following this thread to see when "summer highland falls" would show up -- that was always my favorite. i'm glad it seems to be popular here too!

i can definitely hear the jackson browne influence, not a bad thing necessarily imo

It's absence from the Greatest Hits I owned kept me from hearing it too much, but it was still in enough of a rotation on Lite FM radio in the 90s that I was grateful for the omission. I know I've said before that the line defining good cheesy Billy and bad cheesy Billy is ambiguous and ever-shifting, but in the case of this song, it definitely has something to do with the distinction between sentimentality and schmaltz. "Honesty" is schmaltz.

Later referred to by Joel as "the most bullshit song I ever wrote"

billy otm. if "big shot" is "bennie and the jets" covered in snot, this is "harmony" covered in mucus.

(there was a time in my life when i was impressed how the last syllable of "you're the one that i depend upon" turns into the first syllable of the last chorus. that syllable was the beginning and end of my "honesty" appreciation.)

fwiw, Billy was mostly taking the opportunity to be self-deprecating - "oh like i've always been so honest" etc. I think the song's okay, and the recording and production choices are all correct for a song like this... but it does feel kinda like a plodding ballad-by-numbers, maybe with power ballad aspirations, building to a Broadway-worthy conclusion. I'm wishing it went in some kinda unexpected direction somewhere along the way; on this listen it's reminding me oddly of "I'm So Tired" and it could really use the equivalent of the "You say, I'm putting you on, but it's NO JOKE" section. I mean I think that's what the "I can find a lover..." bridge is trying to do, throw some 'rock' in there, but it's still not sonically varied enough. Where's that Moog when you really need it??

i kinda like Honesty tbh but I hate the way he gives that weird round-vowel delivery of "YOUUUU"

except in some overseas editions where it replaces "Don't Ask Me Why."

So now I'm wondering about the reasons behind switching the songs, but I've got an idea what the answer would be if I posed the question.

Ha! I think it's just plain old chart performance and release history - "Don't Ask Me Why" either wasn't released or didn't chart in Japan, but "Honesty" at least got to #53 there... etc.

Owing to its absence on the comp, I'd never heard it til me or my sister found ourselves with a copy of the album (maybe my parents' old copy?). One of those medium-sized hits that just didn't have a super long-term airplay life, and from an awkward late-70s pop moment not well-served by a lot of the station formats I grew up with. That is, it might have been too "ballad" for Classic Rock as it got solidified, and too "power" for the adult-contemporary stations. Looking at the charts from early 1979, when "My Life" had its peak, there's all this kinda drippy ballad stuff in the top 40 that I never heard growing up - "Too Much Heaven," "You Don't Bring Me Flowers," "Sharing the Night Together," "Don't Throw It All Away," "Lotta Love," "We've Got Tonite"... if it weren't for the post-SNF disco wave, listening to Casey Kasem would have been seriously soporific. Thanks in part to the Yacht revival, I love that stuff now, but outside of the rare dentist's office spin, this stuff had all vanished by the mid-to-late-80s I think...

yeah Mum's cassette comp had Honesty on it, that's prob why I like it so much

and that 1979 syrupy ballad stuff was all over Australian MOR radio, especially our local AM station

yr examples - Too Much Heaven," "You Don't Bring Me Flowers," "Sharing the Night Together," "Don't Throw It All Away," "Lotta Love," "We've Got Tonite" - basically the songs that I remember as a kid

sidebar: some coworkers who are my age & older are obsessed with Yacht Rock and it drives me ~insane~ because they talk about it like it's now some kind of legit genre & not a stupid joke from 2005

*folds arms*

this song isn't very good

you arent very good

(sorry i dont mean that)

lol

Can't blame Brad for his honesty.

top 40 that I never heard growing up - "Too Much Heaven," "You Don't Bring Me Flowers," "Sharing the Night Together," "Don't Throw It All Away," "Lotta Love," "We've Got Tonite".

until you said 5 seconds later that you love this stuff now, i was all set to start another "doctor casino listens" thread!

Ok, so I have in fact mentioned this before:

Nobody in my class listened to Billy Joel. I'm not sure even how I got started on him. One of my fondest memories though is being in 4th grade and holding hands with a girl named Susan underneath a table in the back of the room, listening to "Honesty" while everyone else was out at recess.

― pplains, Tuesday, April 10, 2012 11:29 AM

She was the other "gifted" child in he class.

She's currently a high-profile attorney in a Western state while I'm a guy in his underwear posting on Billy Joel threads.

you had to be a LAW-YER, DEENT CHA

I feel like those are really the two logical endpoints for gifted kids

this album version sounds different to the version i remember, but i looked & there's only 1 slightly diff version

so maybe its just been a long time since i heard it

i remember it being more piano-y?

the thing is though that next to all those whooshy strings-drowned soft-rock classics ("weenie music," dave barry called the genre), phil ramone's production on this record sounds practically new wave. okay maybe not quite, i mean this is the sound of still crazy and so on, but mannn things had gotten a little bit out of hand by the end of the decade.

punks and rockers and pretty much anybody who has universally-agreed-upon ILM cred could sneer at him, but presumably if you owned only paul davis records, billy would feel like the gateway to a tougher, sleazier, rockier world. certainly sonically clearer.

I feel like those are really the two logical endpoints for gifted kids

Or, as a I prefer to think of it, two logical endpoints for characters in a Billy Joel song!

picturing her at her lawyering job, pausing midday as she's drawn into a wistful reflection on a guy she once knew, to the tune of "James"

plaaaaains

I first heard "Honesty" on the Kohuept tape and have probably only heard the studio version 2-3 times.

picturing her at her lawyering job, pausing midday as she's drawn into a wistful reflection on a guy she once knew, to the tune of "James"

plaaaaains

Ha.

I was thinking that today will be the day we all find out what happened to James.

Okay, I love that connection. Teeing up today's tune as we speak...!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HVX80UpMPDI

My Life, the album's million-seller lead single, reprises some "Movin' Out" themes with a smoother groove and another smattering of irresistible hooks. Per the album jacket, backing vocals are not (as I'd always assumed) multiple Billys attempting a Linda McCartney/Denny Laine kinda sound. Rather, it's Peter Cetera and then-current-Chicago-member Donnie Dacus, who were recording Hot Streets with Ramone that same summer. One Final Serenade pulls together some of the best trivia, and links to this great piece by Blair Jackson on Ramone and Boyer's recording approach with Joel and company. Many may know it best (?) as the theme song to the ludicrous sitcom Bosom Buddies (Tom Hanks, Peter Scolari, Wendy Jo Sperber), in a chintzy soundalike version featuring session vocalist Gary Bennett.

The million-selling lead single, it held the #3 spot for three weeks in January 1979 (blocked from the top by "Too Much Heaven" and "Le Freak"). It did well pretty much everywhere - #12 in the UK, #6 in Australia and NZ, #1 in Zimbabwe. For the single, the song was cut down to three five oh by nipping and tucking several instrumental sections, and once again it's this version that appeared on the original release of Greatest Hits I & II. (I neglected to mention it but "Big Shot" also got cut down a bit.)

This one also had a promotional film clip - and it's a proper one, with all kinds of ACTING! It opens with a long stretch of album track "Stiletto," before, to quote an old Eisbaer post, Billy and crew morph from looking they walked offa the set of either mean streets or the warriors into the slick 1970s NYC studio hobbits that they really were and the song kicks in. (I don't quite agree with that characterization, but it's always stuck with me!)

https://img.discogs.com/SJI7VRmB8wXhxvU7Qxp0z9K6t0s=/fit-in/600x605/filters:strip_icc():format(jpeg):mode_rgb():quality(90)/discogs-images/R-476018-1435138498-4858.jpeg.jpg

https://media.giphy.com/media/txanrh2nsTBCg/giphy.gif

I remember sitting around after this came out, visiting with some slightly older friends of my parents. The tune came on the radio, general discussion ensued. They did not approve of this song's message one bit.

"Der Single-Hit in USA"! I love that.

I like the breakdown a lot.

Lyrically, this song is not paired in my memory not with "Movin' Out," but rather with the upcoming "You May Be Right."

BTW, the plots of specific individual Bosom Buddies episodes are etched in my memory.

Long, pointless tangent possibly deserving of its own thread: In a given hour of after-school reruns, Bosom Buddies was often paired with Three's Company in the way that Facts of Life was paired with One Day at a Time; Silver Spoons with Diff'rent Strokes; What's Happening with Good Times; Sanford & Son with Chico & the Man; Happy Days with Laverne & Shirley. These pairings are prominent in my memory. Brady Bunch / Partridge Family; Beverly Hillbillies / Gilligan's Island; Flipper / Gidget; MASH / Taxi; Cheers / Family Ties.

There is a whole lost world in those programming choices. Sometimes the pairing was incongruous, sometimes it was thematically obvious: Happy Days with Laverne & Shirley or Leave It to Beaver with My Three Sons. Also even the hour-long shows got paired, lilke Fantasy Island with Love Boat.

Interesting how so many of us discuss these songs in terms of childhood memory and in terms of how "adult" their themes sounded at the time. Which is not how I think about the Beatles or Zeppelin or Floyd (or, for that matter, Duke Ellington).

In my case, I didn't get into the Beatles, Zeppelin or Floyd until later - Joel's Greatest Hits was in steady household rotation from whenever I was, idk, age eight or ten or something. Those other three I got into a little more consciously and self-directedly, between fourteen and sixteen. Even then I can remember certain things that I related to in a more kiddish way - "Paperback Writer" on first listen struck me as a genuine melodramatic tragedy - this striving writer!

I don't remember ever seeing Bosom Buddies, but in my after-school watching I really favored cartoons, and Nickelodeon's kid-specific sitcoms and gameshows. I remember a lot of surfing past some of those heavily-syndicated shows though, enough that I know the theme songs to "The Facts of Life" and "Cheers" and others without necessarily having ever watched a single episode. If I watched any adult type shows at that age, it was the old fun-for-the-whole-family Technicolor ones with big obvious gimmicks that USA and Nick at Nite would run - Gilligan, F Troop, The Monkees. When I was around thirteen, Nick started rerunning Welcome Back Kotter and I did get into that, which reminds me that apparently Billy's first lyric for this song was "Welcome back, welcome back, welcome back to the real life!"

my favorite thing is the riff
Bah dum, bom
(tinkle piano keys)
Da-da-da-da da da duh

the tinkling piano keys makes me happy

Veg is right, the tinkling is great.

Dr. C., My parents (born 1943-44) may have felt they were slightly too old for Joel.

My mother and stepfather had Beatles, Beach Boys, Judi Collins, John Denver. Some Motown, Ray Charles. Plus some incongruous things like the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack. My father possibly regarded himself as "hip to the scene" and he tried to keep up with new music. He had Stones, Blondie, Bowie, Tom Petty, Elvis Costello, David Johansen.

I guess I absorbed this stuff from peers and siblings.

i think my favorite thing that happens in the billy joel catalog (at least w/r/t the songs i'm already familiar with) is the "i never said" digression in "my life." also this thing is packed with hooks and the sound is so smooooov

I think it must have been my mom who was the Joel backer - my dad was born in '42 after some kind of stint following rock and roll or doo woop or something, he gravitated towards your Dylans and Dave Van Ronks, and then I know nothing about his musical taste until he started buying CDs in the 90s and it was the M People, Dylan's new albums, Natalie Merchant, etc. My mom was born a few years later and was a real Beatles type of teenager. By the time of Joe's stardom my brother and sister had both been born and their record-buying and music-following slowed a lot. I don't think we had any Joel vinyl until I started getting things at yard sales, but The Stranger and 52nd Street MIGHT have just been down in the basement.

That greatest hits cassette, though, that was just around, on road trips and days at the lake and so on. It was like Graceland.

xp yes and the backing vocals in that bit are especially fun