Newspaper Page Text
Billy Joel Doesn't Write Songs About Perfect Love,
And That's Why He Con Write Perfect Songs About Love
may just be the product of some hotel
room haze, but I swear somewhere in
yr the dense thicket of sound bites that
constitutes the modern VH1, there’s a segment
in which they make fun of Billy Joel for writing a
song called "Just the Way You Are" for a woman
he would later divorce. But this is a lie only if
every love song is a lie. 01' Bill was just being
honest: he loved her just the way she was, at
the time. Then she changed, and he divorced
her. At least he was upfront about it.
T here are lots of Billy Joel songs about love
(although, arguably, less per capita than
many pop songwriters). But there's something
particular about the songs that aren't about how
two people are in love, or how someone else is
lovely—the songs that are about how he. Billy
Joel, is in love. Those songs seem less interested
in the ecstasy of love than its rainy days, and are
never more than half complimentary, always most
open when they're stating the obvious: "She's
Always a Woman to Me." Well, of course she is.
It's expressing love while giving as little away as
possible, and in that way displays a remarkable
openness about what loving Billy Joel is like.
Hidden somewhere in every love song is an ad
mission that love will end, and Joel's first-person
love songs foreground this relentlessly.
Even when presented with a jaunty uptempo
swing, as in "Only the Good Die Young," it's with
the self-loathing charge that the object of Joel's
affection couldn't be so great, because other
wise she'd be dead already. The only way he can
escape it is to dress it up in period clothes as
he did with "Uptown Girl," his paean to Christie
Brinkley. If there's anything like honesty in pop
music, you'll find it not in self-centered expres
sions of heartbreak, but in Joel's quiet insistence
that he'll never really get that close to you. That
might not be true for everyone, but it sure seems
true for Billy.
the small miracles of balancing that Joel does so
well in his best first-person love songs (and even
some of his third-person ones, like "Scenes From
an Italian Restaurant," which you can put up
against Springsteen's "Glory Days" if you want to
see bad bathos vs. good bathos in action).
B anality, of course, is mainly what constitutes
love: not flirting or fighting or making up.
but doing dishes, running errands, watching TV.
You probably spend more time sleeping next to
your significant other than you spend doing any
thing else, and what
Billy Joel's songs
seem less
interested in
the ecstasy of
love than its
roiny days.
those of us that
fall prey to the small smiles induced by well-
executed musical sequences involving biking and
eating ice cream can offer—it's something too
often mentioned in passing.
Maybe this is because it's so hard to capture
without falling into the bad kind of bathos, the
kind that wants to legitimate itself through
merely being depressing, instead of performing
makes this Being In
Love and not Taking A
Nap is what happens
when you wake up a
little, that silent warm
feeling in your stom
ach when you hear
their breathing beside
you and feel their cold
foot half-consciously
trying to snag your
calf. You might not remember it the next morn
ing, but what matters is that it happens.
Love is defined by the spaces in between,
by the times when you retreat into yourself,
because the thing that draws you back also
draws you out. That's love, and defining this
absence and its significance for the whole
condition of being in love is what Billy Joel
accomplishes better than anyone else.
There's no denying that Billy Joel can be
over the top, and that for every time this works,
there's another time it's embarrassingly bad. But,
especially in his earlier albums, those times that
he talks about what it's like for him, personally,
specifically, to be in love? Those are times you
can take to the bank.
Michael Barthel
I n this way, his love songs resemble his first hit
"Piano Man," maybe the most perfect expres
sion of bathos the pop canon has to offer. The
sadness feels outsized and all-consuming, but
it's located in commonplace details like the sour
smell of a microphone. Joel's
love songs seek to
capture the bathos and banality of love, some
thing that's inevitably present in any expression
of love, if for no other reason than it's delivered
with the imperfect human voice, and, sadly,
seems to be almost the sole subject of most
short literary fiction these days.
Pop tends to shove this to the sideline, and
that's fine; for those of us, however, that enjoy
the getting-to-know-you montage parts of ro
mantic comedies—particularly
THE WORLD IS YOUR PLAYGROUND, WE ARE YOUR TOYSTORE
y
o ns
OUTFITTERS
1225 S. Milledge Ave. • Athens, GA 30605 • 706-548-7225 • M-F 10:00-7:00 • SAT 10:00-6:00
On the corner of Milledge and Lumpkin in Historic
Here are just
a few of the
discounts that
will be made
available...
Apparel
Arc’Teryx 20% Off
Columbia 30% OfT
Patagonia 20% OfT
MHW 20% OfT.
Prana 30% OfT
Cloudveil 20% OfT
WaterGirl 30% OfT
Kavu 40% OfT
Arborwrar 40% Off
Shoes
All Shoe* 20% Off
Thifl include*
Montrail, Vaaque,
Rogue, Merrell
Blundatonc
Bogs, Keen
& Reef
Re mi lining
2005 Chaeo*
30% Off
Outdoor Gear
2005 0*prey 20% OfT
ArcTeryx 20% Off
Sleeping Bag* 15% Off
Tent* 15% OfT
Accessories 10% Off
36 FLAGPOLE.COM • FEBRUARY 8,2006