Reading about Billy Joel's last concert at Shea, Friday night. Sounds like it was a night of nights. Roger Daltry, Garth Brooks, Tony Bennett, Steve Tyler and Paul McCartney were all there to close the old stadium down. McCartney and The Beatles were the first band to ever play a baseball or football stadium back in 1965 and that was Shea. They had speakers the size of shoe boxes back then and no one heard anything beyond the dugouts. But they played their hearts out and opened up these new venues to the music world. McCartney sang "I Saw Her Standing There" and "Let It Be", to help Joel finish the show.
Billy Joel played "Piano Man" as the last song of the night. Funny how one of the biggest hits in jukebox history could have such depressing subject matter. Virtually every bar in the world has this song on its jukebox and at least once a night you'll hear it, but as my friend said, "every character in it is a loser." A harsh assessment, but an accurate one. That's what Billy Joel songs do sometimes, they make you sing along to stories about losers. When Hillary Clinton won the New York State Senate seat, her victory song that night was "Captain Jack". Because Billy was a lifelong New Yorker, someone in her campaign thought this would be an appropriate song, but really it is a song about a drug addict and the title refers to heroin.
But Billy Joel is infectious. I really, really enjoy his music, some of it I even love. You May Be Right and Only the Good Die Young are always blasted on my car radio. I was very lucky, because as I was starting to appreciate pop music and rock and roll around 1977/78, Billy Joel was just starting to become popular. For an 11 year old kid, Joel was a great way to ease into enjoying rock and roll. His music is nothing if not accessible. EVERYONE has some favorite Billy Joel song, from a teenager to an 80 year old woman like my mother. He transcends generations the way The Beatles and Elvis do.
When I first heard Billy, his big hits were My Life and Big Shot from his 52nd Street album. And when you are growing up and becoming more independent, songs like that really speak to you. And Joel's phrasing has always been so easy to understand, like James Taylor, you know exactly what he's singing without needing a lyric sheet. Although his last great hit, "We Didn't Start the Fire" has a line that confused me until 15 years later. I always heard the song and him singing, "Vaginas under martial law," which I took to mean abortion was always fighting to be legal. But then I saw a video accompanying the song and it showed Tianamen Square and the medical student standing up to the tanks. Ohhhhhhhh, "China's under martial law." Yeah, that does make more sense.
Does anyone have a favorite Joel album, like the Stones' Sticky Fingers or Prince's Purple Rain? Does anyone say to themselves, "Oh the new Billy Joel album just came out, let me go and buy it?" I never did and I've been a big fan for 30+ years. To me he will always be a great singer for radio, not the type of performer that you play on your turntable alone at night. His music is not that private, not that personal to me. The way say Suzanne Vega was.
I guess The Stranger is his best album (Movin' Out, Italian Restaurant, Only the Good Die Young, Just the Way You Are, She's Always a Woman to Me), but I personally think he is the rare rock performer who has amazing singles, without great albums. My "Greatest Hits" package of his, is probably the best album he ever released. 24 songs, 22 of which were radio staples back in that era (1977-1990), Seven that still are to this day. I guess he's the Rodney Dangerfield of rock and roll. You take him for granted like your sofa. Happy it's there, comfortable to have around, forgotten when not spoken of, and missed a lot if it were ever gone.
That's Joel, "The Sofa of Rock and Roll!"
The Freditor
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