From the Piano Man album in 1973 through Glass Houses in 1980, with a quick step back to 1971’s Cold Spring Harbor, each Billy Joel release was a marker in time in my Young Adulthood. Piano Man itself was wonderful, and was undoubtedly my introduction, but hearing Captain Jack and Ballad of Billy the Kid first on late-night radio then on my turntable hooked me, just as Bruce Springsteen had earlier the same year with Greetings from Asbury Park. (Living in Westchester County I felt equidistant from Billy’s Long Island and Bruce’s New Jersey.) Streetlife Serenade, Joel’s followup album, was a disappointment, as was Springsteen’s The Wild, The Innocent & the E Street Shuffle, but both hit it out of the park with their next records: Turnstiles and Born to Run. From their later successes I thought of both Billy Joel and Bruce Springsteen as established stars from the start. It always surprises me when I hear people say they discovered Bruce from Born to Run (and, of course, the general amazement when he accordingly appeared simultaneously on the covers of Time and Newsweek). Now, after watching And So It Goes, Part 1, the HBO documentary, I’m astonished at the lack of acceptance and success accorded Joel before The Stranger in 1977. One of the fun stories told in the movie is when The Stranger is played for the assembled executives of CBS Records to a muted reception. “I don’t see a single here,” says one. It happened to contain five of his biggest hits, including “Just the Way You Are,” an instant classic.
The more meaningful revelation for me in And So It Goes is the extent to which Joel’s songs grew out of his life experiences and emotions. Yes, we all knew that Uptown Girl was inspired by Christie Brinkley, even without the video, but who knew that so many of the love ballads were paeans to his first wife, Elizabeth Bennett, and when the relationship grew tense it produced Stiletto. When Cold Spring Harbor, a beautiful record, produced no financial rewards, Billy and Elizabeth moved to L.A., where he supported his family by, yes, playing piano bar. “And the waitress is practicing politics”–well, the waitress in the bar was Elizabeth! When L.A. doesn’t work out, the family moves back to New York, prompting the songs Say Goodbye to Hollywood, Summer Highland Falls, Miami 2017 (Seen the Lights Go Out on Broadway) and New York State of Mind. The next album, The Stranger, reeks of Long Island, typified by Scenes from An Italian Restaurant. Someone in the movie notes that while Bruce tells stories about other people in his songs, Billy’s songs are about himself.
The movie tells the story of Billy’s early years in flashback fragments, with portions, especially about his father, reserved for Part 2. He was raised on a shoestring budget by a single mother, and we are left to infer the emotional hangups left from his childhood. At the same time, he was given a remarkable music education, and Billy’s training in classical piano is one of the defining and unusual features of his personal rock’n’roll. The stories of his early bands are a hoot, and just like the Beatles and so many others, you realize that a lot of work goes into the “instant success” that rock stars have. The big wrinkle in Billy’s backstory is his falling in love with his bandmate’s wife. He marries her and Elizabeth ultimately takes over his management. She saves him from himself and makes Billy Joel a business as well as artistic success. Elizabeth Bennett (where have I heard that name before?) is the co-star of Part 1; it is her story arc that drives the narrative. When she checks out of Billy’s life after his motorcycle accident, Part 1 ends. We never see her again.
For me, The Stranger was the pinnacle of Joel’s music. Movin’ Out (which became the title of the Twyla Tharp dance-musical), Just the Way You Are, She’s Always A Woman, Only the Good Die Young, The Stranger and the iconic Scenes from an Italian Restaurant would be a career’s worth for most musicians. There was nothing comparable in 1978’s 52nd Street: the songs took on a harder edge, long gone was any youthful innocence. It was Joel’s first #1 album, but I never cared for its hits: Big Shot, My Life, Honesty. I attribute its success to the reputation Billy had built up from his earlier records: like me, everyone who had been hooked by one or more of his first five records bought into this one. Was he wearing out his gift? Were alcohol and drugs dulling his creativity? These trends continued through Glass Houses, the last record covered in Part 1. The movie plays You May Be Right as Billy’s admission that his life is going off the rails, although he must have written it before he crashed his motorcycle. It’s Still Rock and Roll To Me says it all and was worth the price of the record. In its pop purity and down-and-dirty persona it encapsulates the Billy Joel phenomenon and takes us back to where it all started: it’s still rock and roll.
And So It Goes, Part 2 covers the five remaining rock albums Joel recorded, from 1982 to 1993, plus an album of classical compositions. With one exception, the music is dreary and covers no new ground. He had a hit with We Didn’t Start the Fire, but to me that was an unacknowledged rip-off of REM’s It’s the End of the World as We Know It (And I Feel Fine) from two years before. Innocent Man didn’t exactly cover new ground, as Joel was avowedly mimicking earlier styles, such as doo-wop and Four Seasons, but it was a breath of fresh air, perhaps inspired by his new romance with Brinkley. Our family watched the VHS tape over and over, and we sang The Longest Time at our daughter’s wedding reception. Joel shared the writing credit on This Night with Ludwig van Beethoven, and watching him play the Beethoven sonata on his piano was a reminder of how much Joel’s classical training and his piano skills (even after breaking his hand) contributed to his unique brand of rock and roll.
As Part 2 delves into Billy’s second, third and fourth marriages, the defalcations of his next manager (Elizabeth’s brother, against her advice), his endless touring with Elton John to get out of debt, and the drying-up of his urge to make new music, the documentary returns to the level of standard biopic. The novelty is gone, and so is the magic. It’s a balding, fleshy Billy Joel who returns to Madison Square Garden to revive his old hits, to the great pleasure of those, like my wife and me, who grew up with the piano man as well as their offspring, who have since discovered him. And in the end, it’s still rock and roll to me.
