5/1/15 Billy Joel

[JonPorobil]

What is your favorite Billy Joel song?

[noma]

"All For Leyna".

[user]

"The River of Dreams"

[fluffy]

"The Stranger."

From that same album, my least, least, least, least, least favorite song ever is "Scenes from an Italian Restaurant." It's so fucking long and aggravating and it seemed to follow me EVERYWHERE when I lived in NYC. There was a jukebox at the laundromat I went to and every single week, without fail, someone would put that song on.

[Caravan Ray]

Is this a trick question?

[glennny]

Sometimes a Fantasy

Nostalgia, Glass Houses will always take me back to water skiing on lake Powell. We listened to glass houses and 52 street on the boat, and I don't think anything else. Probably the only two 8-track cassettes my friends family had on their boat.

[JonPorobil]

"All For Leyna".

Sometimes a Fantasy

Nostalgia, Glass Houses will always take me back to water skiing on lake Powell. We listened to glass houses and 52 street on the boat, and I don't think anything else. Probably the only two 8-track cassettes my friends family had on their boat.

You two might appreciate this:



(By the way, I agree—Glass Houses used to be one of my least favorite of his albums, but I'm surprised at how well it's aged, aside from "Still Rock and Roll to Me," anyway.)

[JonPorobil]

Oops, I just realized I never answered for myself.

Billy Joel is really important to me, which is why he was my pick to ask about when I woke up and noticed (to my surprise) that no one else had made a thread yet. He was the first songwriter whose work actually made me think of songs from a "craft" perspective, and the first who actually inspired me to make songs of my own.

His career was rich and varied; I don't think he ever got enough credit for how versatile as a songwriter he was. (I'm speaking in the past tense because he's only recorded seven new songs in the last twenty-two years and five of them were covers, so he's pretty much as close to retired as one can be while still selling out Madison Square Garden.)

Honorable mentions go to "Everybody Loves You Now," an upbeat-but-bitter jam from his first album; "Miami 2017 (Seen the Lights go Out on Broadway)," the strange foray into science fiction that closes Turnstiles; "River of Dreams," title track to his final album; and "Blonde Over Blue," a weird Costello-ish number from that same final album. Plus, every song that's been mentioned in this thread is at least worthy of a nod.

But my absolute favorite Billy Joel song is a little-known cut from 52nd Street, his follow-up to the huge commercial success of The Stranger. "Until the Night" is the album's penultimate song, and the second-longest Joel ever put on a studio recording (second only to the multi-section "Scenes from an Italian Restaurant"), but it earns every second.

[Niveous]

Tough tough tough choice. I consider Billy Joel one of the greatest songwriters ever. Being a New Yorker, listening to his older songs is a time machine.

Honorable Mentions go to "I Go To Extremes", "My Life" and "Big Shot".
My favorite is Movin' Out (Anthony's Song)


A special mention to "The Longest Time". Here goes another tale from the Niv wedding. There was a lot of craziness that happened before the ceremony (a much longer story about forgotten suits and a bridge under construction). I was still pretty shaken and stressed out as everything was running late. But then came a moment that calmed everything down. There I was waiting to walk into the room for the ceremony with my kids and my groomsmen. That's when the groomsmen and I decided to break into a rendition of the Longest Time. The moment of hilarity calmed my nerves and I was ready to go.