There is nothing wrong with Billy Joel. In fact, there are many things to like if not love about the guy. For one thing, he looks a little like an elfin dude with Down Syndrome or someone with an eye-bulging pituitary disorder -- and he still marries beautiful women.
But when I was asked recently about the relative merits of his music, it was difficult for me to answer right away.
As a 6-year-old growing up in suburban New Jersey, there was no doubt he was the beginning and end of my musical tastes. The first 8-track tape I owned was “Glass Houses,” and I wore the thing out to the point where it wouldn’t even play.
When I took piano lessons at age 9, one of the first real songs I learned (after “Bone Sweet Bone”) was “Piano Man.” His songs were piano-friendly, of course. And not all that difficult to play.
And looking back, the man has written more than a few undeniably great songs. “Piano Man,” “New York State of Mind,” and “Honesty” are standards -- suitable to be covered by world-renown pop orchestras or doomed to accompanying elevator passengers. It’s hard to resist the charms of
“Miami 2017,” “
Captain Jack,” “
Scenes From an Italian Restaurant,” "
Angry Young Man," “
Vienna,” “
Goodnight Saigon,” and “
Only the Good Die Young.”
But here’s the thing. As I grew up, I began to turn to music more and more for something beyond a nice melody or a cute lyric. Which is why my musical touchstone became the far more formidable and enduring Bruce Springsteen.
Billy Joel is a great songwriter, but his songs don’t exactly live beyond the four minutes it takes to hear them. Perhaps the exceptions are
“New York State of Mind” and
“Goodnight Saigon,” which stir both nostalgia and melancholy. They can be both meditative and rousing.
But if 1,000 Billy Joels toiled on 1,000 typewriters for 1,000 years, they couldn’t write anything approaching the agonizing emotion of Springsteen’s
“Backstreets.”I listen to music for all kinds of reasons, and there is a place for them all. Music can accompany you on long car rides, it can pump you up for a run around the park or a big game, and it can play in the background to help you study organic chemistry. It can also provide emotional sustenance and help teach you more about the human condition.
What do you really get from
“Big Shot”? It’s a third hand knock-off of Elton John’s “The Bitch is Back” which is itself a knock-off of countless Rolling Stones tunes, including “Bitch.”
And how many Billy Joel songs even rock? He’s in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame (
a fatally flawed institution, to be sure), and so much of his music owes more to Tin Pan Alley, The Brill Building, Broadway and Latin flavoring than “Satisfaction” or “Like a Rolling Stone.”
Billy Joel is to “You Were the One” and “
Don’t Ask Me Why” as Paul McCartney is to “Michelle” and “Silly Love Songs.”
And how about
“Uptown Girl”? It was once (a long, long time ago) maybe a pleasing update of 1950s “Leader of the Pack”/Frankie-Valli-style pop. Now it is a whiny scourge of soured sentiment, punctuated by a real-life busted marriage.
Maybe I can be accused of unfairly picking on “Uptown Girl.” I mean, Joel has written dozens of songs on about a dozen albums. But those albums aren’t exactly deep with wall-to-wall quality. I like “All for Leyna,” “Close to the Borderline,” "Leave a Tender Moment Alone," “
You May Be Right,” “Stilleto,” “The Great Suburban Showdown,” "
It's Just a Fantasy," and “Sleeping With The Television On.” But these songs are fluff and filler compared to a guy like Springsteen who holds back more than he ever puts on his painstakingly constructed albums. Aside from some lamentable offerings on his first two albums, the "Dancing in the Dark" video, the mistake of not combining the best of “Human Touch” and “Lucky Town” into one disc, a bit of “The Ghost of Tom Joad” and some of “Devils and Dust,” Springsteen’s core discography doesn’t leave you wondering if he just emptied the vault to complete the project.
And speaking of broken marriages, the bust-up of Springsteen’s marriage produced every song on “Tunnel of Love,” including the downright frightening sentiments of “
Brilliant Disguise,” in which a man sings:
Tonight our bed is cold
I’m lost in the darkness of our love
God have mercy on the man
Who doubts what he’s sure of.”
And then there’s “
Stolen Car,” in which Bruce imagines a married man so tortured by regret and devoid of an identity, he drives along in a stolen car, hoping to get caught. But he never does, underscoring how hopelessly alone and ghostly insignificant he is.
In comparison, Billy Joel offers us these strained metaphors:
“Well we all have a face
That we hide away forever
And we take them out and
Show ourselves when everyone has gone
Some are satin some are steel
Some are silk and some are leather
They're the faces of the stranger
But we love to try them on.”
What exactly are these leather faces? Is "
The Stranger" some S&M freak?
“My Life"? It's the theme song to the Tom Hanks-in-drag sitcom “Bosom Buddies,” sure. But, when considered along with “
Movin’ Out (Anthony’s Song)", still nothing more than some effete bits of domestic rebellion. Not exactly The Animals’
“It’s My Life,” covered in ferocious fashion by Springsteen during the 70’s in a way you can actually hear the bad blood between a father and son. And nothing like the frayed-nerve yearning for freedom expressed in his own “Adam Raised a Cain” or “Independence Day.”
OK, OK. This is the flimsiest strawman argument ever. I mean, comparing Billy Joel to Bruce Springsteen is absurd. Bruce is an icon. He's a heavyweight. He belongs in the same discussion as The Who and The Ramones and The Band. He followed all those guys and Dylan and Johnny Cash and Chuck Berry, and he saved rock music when it was in dark peril, bringing it back to its roots and taking it to ballsy new heights.
Billy Joel stands perhaps a step or two higher than Jon Bon Jovi and many steps below his heroes, The Beatles and Ray Charles. The obvious comparison to Billy is Elton. But I give Elton the edge because Taupin's lyrics lend him the absurdity of pretension Joel can't afford as a supposedly earnest singer-songwriter. And I'd say no Joel song has ever affected me the same way as "Mona Lisas and Mad Hatters," or "Amoreena." Or "Candle in the Wind" did before it abdicated Marilyn's myth to Diana's.
In Billy’s defense, he puts on a damn fine live show. He works hard, sweats, plays to the back seats and invests himself in his vocals. But for the most part, those vocals aren’t worth the investment.
I suppose he manages to evince some of the emotion culled from his romantic escapades and the demons who provoke his drinking and occasionally prod him to steer his cars into various Long Island trees.
But when his outlet for such emotions is “I Go To Extremes,” I think he’s missing the boat. And mostly, he just lowers his voice into that Ray Charles faux-soul drawl. It’s more of a performance -- like putting on a costume for two hours. Bruce, on the other hand, sings in his own distinctive voice and doesn’t try to sound like he’s black, even when covering something like Gary “U.S.” Bonds’ “Quarter to Three.”
A Springsteen concert is part confessional, part political rally, part barroom bash, part church testimonial. Billy’s concerts serve as a jukebox greatest hits parade or karaoke sing-along.
When it comes to social commentary, Billy belts out “
Allentown,” “Goodnight Saigon,” or “Downeaster Alexa.”
These are good songs. Some of his best. But do they really stack up to Springsteen’s “
Born in the U.S.A.,” “
Atlantic City,” "
The River," “
Youngstown,” or “My City of Ruins”?
After 9/11, both Bruce and Billy played separate nationally televised all-star charity concerts. These shows served to unite and heal the country as much as to raise funds for the victims’ families. Bruce previewed the desperate fountain of inspiration that would eventually yield “The Rising” with
a solemn, rousing rendition of “My City of Ruins.” Originally written for Asbury Park, it was exactly what the country needed to hear in a way we hardly even knew just days after the world changed forever.
In comparison, Billy sang his chestnut
“Miami 2017: Seen the Lights Go Out on Broadway,” which he told the crowd he wrote as a bit of science fiction in the 1970s during the city’s fiscal crises. “I never thought it would come true,” he said.
And it was fitting, and moving, but still somewhat empty. I mean, what value could be gained from singing about some dystopic vision of the city that never came (and never will come) to be? The devastation he sings about in “Miami 2017” (burning churches in Harlem, aircraft carriers giving The Yankees a lift, the mafia moving to Mexico) was outlandish and self-imposed. I guess we can’t really hold it against Joel (other than for not writing anything relevant for over 15 years), but at least Springsteen had the fortune to have the perfect song all ready to re-dedicate to a more needy cause.
And that’s why I
need to listen to Springsteen. Flying to Thailand after living in New York before and after 9/11, I needed “The Rising” to help me stay connected. To remind me what was lost that day. And what was gained.
A fringe but solid band like The Black Crowes might not delve into the same kind of emotional terrain on a regular basis. But they have a soulful white-southern-boy authenticity that allows you to at least imagine they are a younger Rolling Stones/ Faces/ Allman Brothers Band fusion. When they play, you feel like they mean every note.
U2 can offer the same kind of nourishment. They played a concert at Madison Square Garden in October 2001, and songs like “Elevation,” “Beautiful Day,” “Until the End of the World,” and “Sunday, Bloody Sunday,” took on a new resonance. These are stirring, tingling, occasionally angry, yet always hopeful songs. They demand and reward faith.
Billy Joel? He’s the guy you call on when we’re all in the mood for a melody.
