I’ve Loved These Days
Policy of Truth
As a kid, riding around in my dad’s car, he played thousands upon thousands of songs from his library, but there were a few artists among those songs that stood out far beyond many others. Bands and artists like ELO, Tom Jones, but especially, above everything else, was the music of Billy Joel. My dad’s youth and teen years coincided with Billy Joel’s rise to fame in the 70’s and 80’s and he’s told me stories of times that Joel would release a new record and my dad would listen to it until the grooves of the vinyl had been worn. This love of Joel’s music, luckily wore off on to me. As a kid, I always loved to listen to whatever music my dad would be playing, and Billy Joel just happened to be a frequent flyer on his playlists for each month. As I grew up and spent less time listening to my dad’s music and more my own, Billy Joel still stuck around as one of my go to artists of the 20th Century and to this day, he remains in my heart, my favorite solo artist of that century. It’s funny though, because I’m pretty particular with the music I listen to and enjoy, so Billy Joel almost seems like the, dare I say, basic choice for a top tier musician, but I can’t help that he is!
Artists can have good lyrics, artists can have good sound, artists can have good production, but not all artists have all of them. In my opinion, Joel has all the marks of a great, no, exceptional musician. His harmonious piano playing, his adaptable voice, and his superb lyricism all contribute to the creation of his oh-so famous, award-winning songs and albums. But it’s not that he just can write well (which he can!), but like many others, he puts his own experiences into the writing which makes it so much more powerful. Songs like “Tomorrow is Today”, “Piano Man”, “Say Goodbye to Hollywood”, and many others were written based upon Joel’s life, and not just some fiction he conjured up. “Tomorrow is Today” was originally a sort of suicide note Joel had written before his solo career began. “Piano Man” is about his time living anonymously in Los Angeles after he decided to leave New York after contractual disputes regarding his first album, Cold Spring Harbor. In Los Angeles, he played piano at a bar and he wrote the song based upon people he observed during that time. “Say Goodbye to Hollywood”, as the title alludes, is the first song on his album, Turnstiles, which was his first album recorded after he returned to New York after his stint in Los Angeles.
Like I mentioned, he uses experiences to write, but he’s also exceptional at writing without a specific singular experience. Take the song “The Ballad of Billy the Kid” for example. The song is a chronicle of the general life of notorious outlaw, Billy the Kid. This obviously wasn’t Joel’s own experiences, but he relates it to himself by using the title has a double meaning (Billy the Kid and Billy Joel: both Billys). At the end of the song, he seems to be repeating an earlier lyric but replaces the words to make it seem like he was actually singing about himself, which by this point in the song, he is. “From a town known as Oyster Bay, Long Island, rode a boy with a six-pack in his hand”. He replaces the location and changes ‘six-gun’ to ‘six-pack’, signaling the shift from Billy the Kid, to Billy (the) Joel.
Joel’s lyrics contain very powerful messages and experiences, but tying it all together, is the actual instruments and vocals, and boy are his songs amazing in all rights. Songs like “Summer, Highland Falls” (a personal favorite), “I’ve Loved These Days”, “Zanzibar”, honestly take your pick. Any given song by Joel for the most part, superbly mixes, lyrics, vocals, and instrumentals in a way that is very uniquely Joel, and if someone heard it, they’d be able to say “Hey, is this Billy Joel?”
I can rant and rave about Billy Joel any old day, but I’m going to list off some ‘must listen to’ songs from the man himself in order of release: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/09n5c3xQ5L2qrHC8xZzYhr?si=QYdPW77oQZSdhWtE_u1SBQ
“She’s Got a Way”
“Everybody Loves You Now”
“Tomorrow is Today”
“Got To Begin Again”
“Piano Man”
“You’re My Home”
“The Ballad of Billy the Kid”
“Los Angelenos”
ALL OF TURNSTILES (1976)
“Movin’ Out (Anthony’s Song)”
“Just the Way You Are”
“Scenes from an Italian Restaurant”
“Vienna”
“My Life”
“Zanzibar”
“Stiletto”
“Rosalinda’s Eyes”
“Don’t Ask Me Why”
“All for Leyna”
“Through the Long Night”
“Allentown”
“Pressure”
“The Longest Time”
“Running on Ice”
“And So It Goes”
“Lullabye (Goodnight, My Angel)”
“Cross to Bear – Demo – 1974” From My Lives unreleased songs and demos
You listened to them? I’ll assume so. You’ll notice I didn’t pick all the most famous ones that you normally hear, though I did pick some, but I picked songs that instead are popular to me, that are important to me, and even my dad. Billy Joel has had deep importance in both of our lives, and one day, if I have a kid, I’ll pass it all down to them.
