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

yeah I mean Uptown Girl is obv ubiquitous and I have heard it in the wild for decades, but I'm not sure I ever even pegged it as a Joel song! maybe I thought it was Huey Lewis or something. it doesn't even sound like him, IMO - is it all just Valli-aping? did he ever sing high like this again?

Huey's allright but this song is way out of his league

he's claimed in interviews that he did the "innocent man" note with a sense of "this is probably the last time I'll be able to do this note so what the hell.". but it's not like he ever did a lot of high notes in the first place! maybe the "do!" in "all for leyna" ...?

it would probably would have added some life to some tracks tbh - "half a mile away" for example really needed some high end and more of a sense of exuberance cutting loose from the meat n potatoes band. "it ain't no cry-ee-yi-ee-yime" ...

xpost shakey ot fuckin m

pretty stoked that this is the song where shakey joins the club, however brief this moment may shine

hey now I have expressed appreciation for some other tracks on here! I'm not made of stone.

tell billy about it!
tell him everything you feel!
give him every reason to accept
that you're for real

Billy Joel's Greatest Hits EP as Compiled By Me

1. Uptown Girl
2. Movin' Out
3. The Longest Time
4. You May Be Right
5. Only the Good Die Young

Burn the rest

chill out -- "You're Only Human (Second Wind)" is coming soon!

holy shit Billy Joel just had another baby last week

i wonder if christie lee is ever like "dooooon't forGET your SECond WIFE"

He's making up for the dudes who never had time for a wife.

billy has loads of time for many wives

'snippet from the ed sullivan show' was a very popular music video trope. l.a. guns did it for 'never enough,' and obviously nirvana did it in a more absurdist fashion.

Wow, this guy had quite the act!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D91KfEf6vPU

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cD18zj1UYDY

Careless Talk leads us into our accustomed stretch of lesser-known side-B tracks, which this time around will be a short run, given the album's barrage of singles. Your basic "don't believe the rumors" song, it was the B-side to "Uptown Girl" in some markets.

A well done pastiche that does little for me as a song.

^^ this

the "TALKy, talky talky" backing vocals get stuck in my head. and the "ah yah yaaahh yah." i think i like it, but it's possible i would like it better with the lead vocal swapped out for a saxophone or surf-style guitar.

It's not by any means terrible.

catching up.

tell her about it – i like this song more now than i did when the album came out. i think back then it seemed like too much of a retreat after the relatively modern/new-wavey twists of the singles from glass houses and the nylon curtain, and i had wanted more of that, and this song in particular struck me as the least natural and most self-conscious of all the stylistic exercises on an innocent man. hearing it today, i can't help but smile at the craft and at billy's newfound self-confidence and optimism. also, i am wondering right now if certain style council songs wouldn't have been better off with billy singing them instead of paul weller.

uptown girl – this on the other hand i loved immediately. a perfect fit and a perfect rip. the key changes are indeed sublime, as noted by a couple posters above. the lead vocal, all the vocals, are peak billy. every time i hear it again, i think i'm not sure i need to hear it again, and yet i can't turn it off. that said, as downtown-boy-meets-uptown-girl songs go, i'd rather hear the four seasons' "dawn."

careless talk – the mathematics of peak billy: craft + confidence = mediocre side 2 album tracks that are way, way better than his previous mediocre side 2 album tracks.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ru-gkHHwDb4

Christie Lee tells the tale of a horn-loving heartbreaker, set to some old-time rock-n-roll. For a (slightly) more relaxed, bar-band-flavored take, check the demo.

https://i.imgur.com/N6dH9fC.gif

I'd always hated this song without really paying attention to the lyrics, on the assumption that it was just a dumb compliment-brag about his cool girlfriend. Actually paying attention to it, it's more a harmless dumb punchline song, where most of is there just to get us to "all she wanted was the sax." Cute. If it was a minute shorter, as it surely would have been in 1958, I'd give it a full thumbs up, since I don't mind the effort at an 80s-ification of Jerry Lee Lewis. Kind of amazing how little the Piano Man has gone in this direction, with "Weekend Song" maybe the closest thing we've seen.

in asbury park in the 1980s, you could walk into the stone pony on any given nite and find a local group of really good bar-band musicians playing sets of roy orbison, sam & dave and wilson pickett covers, with one or two originals thrown in that would sound exactly like "christie lee," but better.

That punch line is pure Billy: something makes you smile and roll your eyes at the same time.

"She was a nice piece of music" – mm lovely. Guess this ruins what would've been Joel's best hits-plus-filler album to date.

Both these last two are pretty uninspired, but "Christie Lee" would be fun live, i imagine. "Careless Talk" gets old before the second chorus

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JHpIC4Kk0MU

Leave A Tender Moment Alone leads us towards the finish with another study in self-directed romantic advice. It doubled as the penultimate single, peaking at #27 on Billboard (#1 on Adult Contemporary). In the UK it was released as a double-A-side with "Goodnight Saigon" and as a 12" backed with "Goodnight Saigon," "Movin' Out," "Big Shot," and "You May Be Right." They really were trying to build up his prior efforts! It peaked at #29. Elsewhere, it was backed simply with "This Night" or "Easy Money."

As a moderate hit, it's been a bit forgotten by time, and was passed over on all three Greatest Hits discs. It finally got anthologized in 2001 on both The Essential Billy Joel and The Ultimate Collection.

https://img.discogs.com/1wK_ONECROmoH7L_8bZc8iEL82U=/fit-in/570x572/filters:strip_icc():format(jpeg):mode_rgb():quality(90)/discogs-images/R-477490-1298907005.jpeg.jpg

My A/C radio station plays this all the time – one of his most relaxed set pieces. Toots Thielemans' harmonica is a perfect touch.

Love this song, and because it was missing from the three greatest hits albums, I discovered it much later in life. Wistful and timeless melody that he wisely and aptly left alone (mostly). Not surprised it wasn't a big hit though

Could just be Billy fatigue... also, the Thriller model can mean that by the fourth and fifth singles, a lot of your target market now owns the album, and there are diminishing returns unless you keep bringing in new constituencies (and now... the country song!).

Gotta be in the top 5 harmonica songs ever.

For me, this is one of the first glimmers I saw of his "hey, by the way, I'm also a grownup" side. I had only heard pop hits so I wouldn't have known about "I've Loved These Days" or various other ventures into more reflective material.

"Leave a Tender Moment" and the later "This Is the Time" are mentally shelved with sophistopop: "This Much Is True," "Brilliant Disguise," and "Life in a Northern Town."

Enjoy this much more than I used to. Reminds me so much of AM Gold, like "Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head" or even something like "Alone Again (Naturally)".

"Raindrops Keep Falling" hits that exact same feeling, good call

I caught this one on the radio a few days ago and ended up getting bored and changing the station after a minute or so. That said, I'm not surprised to discover that many people have an affection for it--it's well performed and not without hooks, but it's just not my thing.

"raindrops keep falling" thirded. i love all the falsetto. while it's typical billy to be so literal with it (chest voice: "to keep the conversation..." head voice: "...light"), he has a really pliable voice that he doesn't always take advantage of. as a singer, he's peaking on this album.

this is a quintessential billy line: "i put my foot in my mouth 'cause i'm just avoiding the facts." i often can't tell if he's super awkward, super good at narrating his own emotional instruction manual, or both. the thinking man who's afraid of rejection, as a wise man once put it. but he seems, for now, to have gained the wisdom to bathe in the wonder of that awkward moment instead of retreating to his hotel room. to let the raindrops keep falling on his head, as it were.

catching up:

"careless talk": this is ok but it's so close to being sorta good that it's frustrating, the chorus is just... doing nothing
"christie lee": idk this is a trifle but it's a fun trifle
"leave a tender moment alone": wow this song is fucking wonderful

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xBUj8TPWE9E

Keeping the Faith, the album’s closing track, final single, and imo biggest grower, offers a summary statement on his teenage revivalism, set to a musical backing closer to the chart-toppers of the early 70s. The video, in turn, could only be a product of 1984. It’s cute, but for me cheats the song of some of its affecting sincerity. The track peaked at #18 on Billboard (#3 Adult Contemporary), rounding out the album’s quintet of top-forty hits. With "An Innocent Man," it would be held off the first Greatest Hits double-album, arriving only on Volume III in 1997.

Some versions of the single include longer mixes, and a Wikipedia editor on a mission declares: The actual 7" and 12" mixes have never been released on CD or even in digital format for stores like iTunes - despite customer demand. You can hear the cluttered, five-minute “Special Mix” here and decide for yourself how serious an injustice this is.

https://img.discogs.com/UnRwyB9G-TkKvF8Sk0DZ_7hgtZY=/fit-in/600x579/filters:strip_icc():format(jpeg):mode_rgb():quality(90)/discogs-images/R-3848693-1412726958-4071.jpeg.jpg

https://img.discogs.com/hkwbN-nSGsJaXnTJRiCjStU3cmg=/fit-in/600x562/filters:strip_icc():format(jpeg):mode_rgb():quality(90)/discogs-images/R-3848693-1412726959-9525.jpeg.jpg

I've always liked this one, mostly for the way in which he tempers rose-coloured nostalgia with realism ("the good old days weren't always good"). Plus, the whole presentation, from the jaunty horn arrangement to Billy's wistful vocal, is just a joy to listen to--the aural equivalent of a nice cold beer in the shade.

little bit of foreshadowing

https://i.imgur.com/nJMGdFq.gif

"The good old days weren't always good..."

Though I initially found this song, and its backyard-lazing suburban dad protagonist, pretty off-putting, I've come to really like it. I especially like the different "faiths" that get blended together here - honoring the musicians who unknowingly provided the soundtrack to all his sweet and stupid teenage adventures, honoring the teenage buddies and lovers, and honoring the music itself and its special power - we've gotten so so used to tedious boomer narratives about what a revelation rock and roll was, but man, I believe Billy when he declares "and then I was saved." Preceding it with the most shopworn of rock rhymes, desiYAH and fiYAH, only cements that for me - the very metaphors he uses to make sense of his life and his feelings come from this music, it's in his bones.

Yeah, this song is some really good lyric writing, with a specificity on par with songs like "Movin' Out," e.g., "Wore matador boots, only Flagg Brothers had 'em with a Cuban heel/iridescent socks with the same color shirt and a tight pair of chinos." Or "Ate an awful lot of late-night drive-in food, drank a lot of take-home pay" -- that's practically a Springsteen lyric!

Also wrapping an album like this, comprising all these pastiches of music he grew up with, with a song that's basically a thesis statement about the album itself and his life, is a pretty non-Billy move!

Leave a Tender Moment Alone - def "Raindrops Keep Falling On My Head" except w Stevie Wonder-style harmonica.
Keeping the Faith - I don't think I know this one but holy shit that opening Bo Diddley chunka-chunka = George Michaels' "Faith" (dunno if that was intentional on GM's part). This arrangement sounds strangely undercooked. Horn arrangement is good. That phased keyboard sound is gross.

It's a damn good Stevie Wonder impersonation. Because he played on Elton's big single that year, I thought it was Wonder.

I have a soft spot for the bouncy vibe of this song. And as Phil said, it has some choice lines. "Drank a lot of take-home pay" alone is like a full short story.

In a Chev-uh-ro-lay!

Having a deeply spiritual engagement with music/art/culture (in lieu of religion) is a worthy theme and highly relatable to me. But I don't need to hear this song very often. Like, once every few years is just about right. It cloys otherwise. I H8 the video.

"thought I was the Duke of Earl" is another line that kinda floors me. again, in a different context it'd just be a lame "hey remember that?" namecheck. here though he's taking this song that I've always enjoyed but never thought much about, and taking me into the mind of a teenager who believes, unquestioningly, that the Duke of Earl is as awesome as he boasts - the coolest, sexiest dude on the planet. this clarity softens us up to believe joel's remembering something real about himself, a very specific kid that he was, and this in turn makes it seem likely that the red-haired girl and the chevrolet and this specific encounter are all also real and important. there's such a sweetness to it.

by comparison there are only a few details in, say, the film "stand by me" that seem quite as unforcedly honest, and at least one of them - that the twelve-year-olds are not too old or too macho to love "lollipop" - is also about pop music. if only reiner had as much interest in kiefer sutherland's greasy toughs, the comparison to this song might go further.