Best Songwriters – #10 – Billy Joel
A couple of weeks ago, I posted a comment saying that I don’t consider Brad Paisley or Taylor Swift among my “top tier” of songwriters. So of course the question that immediately jumped into my mind was, “Who is in my top tier of songwriters?”
The next two weeks will be dedicated to answering that question.
First, a few ground rules.
I’m restricting this list to solo artists. No Lennon/McCartney or Berry/Buck/Mills/Stipe band collaborations here. No Counting Crows, Belle & Sebastian or The Smiths.
Also, I’m focusing on contemporary performers, mostly because I don’t feel qualified to rank the greats of yesteryear. Sorry, Cole Porter.
And I’m highlighting only artists who record their own material, so a stockpile of songs written for others doesn’t count for much (even though some of the artists on this list have done both).
Restricting this list to ten was difficult, and I left off a number of songwriters who could just as easily have made the cut. I ran through about five different names in the tenth spot before finalizing the lineup. I won’t name any of the runners-up now at risk of killing the suspense, but I’ll acknowledge them before I’m through.
Finally, I initially arranged this list randomly, then alphabetically, before deciding that if you’re going to make a list, you might as well go all the way and put it in order. These numeric rankings are far from set in stone… I’ve changed them about a dozen times already. But forcing myself to choose an order is part of the fun.
Kicking things off at #10 is Billy Joel. Joel almost disqualified himself as a “contemporary” artist by the long drought since his last album (it’s been 18 years since he released River of Dreams!). Presumably Joel is through releasing new material. But his music was such an integral part of my early life that I gave him the benefit of the doubt.
Joel earned his spot here in part because he’s the first artist I can recall thinking about as a singer-songwriter. I probably didn’t think about it by that phrase, but I knew that he was more than just a guy playing music. He told stories. He took me to Zanzibar, 52nd Street and Vienna. He explained that only the good died young and brought Anthony, Brenda and Eddie to vivid life in my imagination.
He exuded a street smart New York attitude that I found cool and a little dangerous. I wanted to see the streets and meet the people he sang about.
Joel’s best work is found on the three albums he released in the mid to late 70s. His first three records — Cold Spring Harbor, Piano Man and Streetlife Serenade — were released between ’71 and ’74 and feature a nice blend of Joel classics and effective piano balladry. But the next three — Turnstiles, The Stranger and 52nd Street — contain what I consider his legacy.
Today’s track, from Turnstiles, probably isn’t well-known to non-hardcore Billy Joel fans, but it’s one of his finest compositions. I adore piano songs like this one that sound so effortlessly elevating (it’s no coincidence that five of the ten people on this list are primarily piano players). And Joel’s lyrics here are among his finest.
But they’re the only times I’ve ever known
And I believe there is a time for meditation
In cathedrals of our own
Now I have seen that sad surrender in my lovers’ eyes
I can only stand apart and sympathize
For we are always what our situations hand us
It’s either sadness or euphoria
And so we’ll argue and we’ll compromise
And realize that nothing’s ever changed
For all our mutual experience
Our separate conclusions are the same
Now we are forced to recognize our inhumanity
A reason coexists with our insanity
And so we choose between reality and madness
It’s either sadness or euphoria
How thoughtlessly we dissipate our energies
Perhaps we don’t fulfill each other’s fantasies
And as we stand upon the ledges of our lives
With our respective similarities
It’s either sadness or euphoria
Meet Me In Montauk 
First, I couldn’t be more excited about the next two weeks. What a perfect theme for the blog. 🙂
Second, thank you for choosing to feature what is probably my very favorite Billy Joel song, and that’s saying something I know. Joel would likely be a bit higher on my list of songwriters, but it is shocking to think that he hasn’t written a song (with the exception of that horrid ballad he wrote for his most recent wife of five minutes!) in 18 years!!! Yes, given those last two details, maybe #10 is just right!
But, oh, this song… “For all our mutual experience, our separate conclusions are the same” – these lyrics are perfect.
It’s funny I just mentioned him on your blog a couple of days ago. I love this song; and I don’t know who will follow him up the ladder in the next two weeks; but I bet I’ll still think he should be on top 😉
Well, I too am looking forward to the next 2 weeks. Great theme.
And, while I can understand the desire by some to move Joel higher up in the rankings, I think your reason for placing him 10th are relatively sound. I would add that, what held Joel back from a songwriting standpoint was, often times, his lyrics. He is the first to admit this, stating in a recent interview that he would often come up with such great music only to screw it up with his words. It is part of the reason why he chose to leave the world of popular music songwriting in favor of classical composition.
But I don’t think it’s fair to say that Joel’s lyrics couldn’t match the music. Today’s song is a great example of lyrics being equal to the beautiful music. And there are other examples, such as Vienna, Piano Man, Only the Good Die Young, Scenes from an Italian Restaurant, New York State of Mind, etc… I think that, by and large, Joel’s lyrics were better when he was younger, perhaps hungrier and struggling more, and so some of the best lyrics can be found through the Stranger album. One notable exception after that, at least for me, was The Nylon Curtain, where I think Joel, after being bashed by critics and getting into a motorcycle crash (little did we know it would be the first of many car crashes), took on a more introspective approach to his lyrics. There’s some good lyrics on Bridge, fueled by Joel being ripped off by his manager, but, generally, you see the lyrical decline in the latter albums.
Anyway, Joel was, to be sure, my first love from a singer/songwriter perspective and he will always hold a special place in my heart, even if, objectively, I must agree that there are better songwriters out there, some of whom I’m sure you will be featuring in the next 2 weeks.