![]() Joel made The Stranger with his road band, largely the same group who played on Turnstiles. His piano chords are enchanting, and he coins his greatest phrase from a non-hit: “It’s either sadness or euphoria.” As charming as “Summer, Highland Falls” is, it’s also absurdly wordy: “How thoughtlessly we dissipate our energies/Perhaps we don’t fulfill each other’s fantasies.” Again, fast forward to 1977 and “Only the Good Die Young,” Joel’s cleverest Stranger song lyrically: “You didn’t count on me/When you were counting on your rosary,” and, “You say your mother told you all that I could give you was a reputation.” It’s a hoot. ![]() Now turn to The Stranger, which opens thrillingly with another mild diatribe against middle class professional ambition, “Movin’ Out (Anthony’s Song).” As soon as the needle drops, Joel is smashing on his piano and the bass is kicking up the groove, playing with gusto and rhythm.Īlso from Turnstiles is “Summer, Highland Falls,” my favorite pre- Stranger Joel song. Joel lightly excoriates James for pausing his artistic ambitions to go to college and “living up to expectations.” The melody is not particularly gripping and the chiding doesn’t feel particularly deserved. Take “James,” from Turnstiles, inspired by Joel’s high school friend and bandmate Jim Bosse. The secrets to The Stranger’s success, however, are scattered across Joel’s first four albums, unfortunately buttressed by a lot of unremarkable songs that lack their own punch. Stephen Holden, who eventually wrote glowingly about Joel for The New York Times, opened his Rolling Stone review, “Billy Joel’s pop schmaltz occupies a stylistic no man’s land where musical and lyric truisms borrowed from disparate sources are forced together.” Joel returned to New York in 1975 and made Turnstiles, which Village Voice critic Robert Christgau called “more obnoxious.” ![]() ![]() While the former had its champions, not many people liked Streetlife Serenade. Weber later married and managed Joel.) In Los Angeles, Joel struck a deal with Columbia and made two albums, Piano Man and Streetlife Serenade. (The hiccup was that Weber was married to Jon Small, who figured his wife and son were kidnapped and went West to locate them and bring them back to Long Island. For some reason, Artie Ripp, who produced the album and signed Joel despite his commercial track record, simply didn’t notice or care that the mixing machine was set incorrectly, leaving Joel’s vocals on Cold Spring Harbor pitched up “like Alvin and the Chipmunks.” Joel smashed his test pressing, and still claims to hate the album.Īfter Cold Spring Harbor, Joel drove across the country to Los Angeles with his girlfriend Elizabeth Weber and her 5-year-old son Sean. His debut, however, was a failure and objectively fucked up. The albums weren’t notable enough even to call them failures. He cut his teeth as a young musician, playing on three albums before his 1971 solo debut: The Hassles and Hour of the Wolf, with his bar band the Hassles, and the proto-metal Attila, with his buddy and fellow former Hassle Jon Small. The success of The Stranger did a lot to erase, or at least ameliorate, Billy Joel’s reputation as an aggrieved musician who made a point of despising the dog and pony show of music promotion. A lot of people have since agreed with her, including those at the Recording Academy, which gave Joel the Grammys for Record and Song of the Year. “That’s one of the greatest songs I’ve ever heard,” Linda Ronstadt apparently told Joel after hearing “Just the Way You Are” in the studio. Famously, Joel likes to say that he didn’t want to put the biggest song on the album. It especially gained popularity after the song’s usage in the 2004 movie 13 Going on 30.Joel says he didn’t make The Stranger like it was his last shot at success, but it’s hard to see it any other way. Nevertheless, the song grew out to be one of Billy Joel’s most popular. “Vienna” was never released as an A-side single and never reached the charts. The song eventually appears as the opener of side two of The Stranger. Billy heard their song Give It All Away and decided to use it for Vienna’s intro. The inspiration for the music came from a band called Topper. The Song’s LegacyĪlthough the idea of “Vienna” was born in 1972, Billy Joel did not release the song until 1977. “I kind of used ‘Vienna’ as a metaphor, there is a reason for being old, a purpose.”īilly later admitted the song was also subconsciously written about the troubled relationship, and absence, of his father. You have a whole life to live,” Joel said in an interview with the Republican. “You don’t have to squeeze your whole life into your 20s and 30s trying to make it, trying to achieve that American dream, getting in the rat race and killing yourself.
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