Billy Joel was the man who made me a music fan. When my older brother brought home The Stranger in 1977 when I was but 5 years old, something inside of me just lit up that has never gone away since. It’s been hip to bash Joel through the years, for reasons I’ve never understood. Shit like he never rocked hard enough, or people thought he was posing when he did rock out, or whatever. The man’s written a ton of great songs, and a bunch of them are tracks that aren’t even the hit singles. Here then are five of those songs worth checking out and delving a little deeper into Joel’s impressive songwriting catalogue.
1. “Surprises” – This tune is from Joel’s masterpiece, 1982’s The Nylon Curtain. That album is filled with stellar songs, but this one seems to be the creepiest and most cryptic. I always wanted to ask Billy about this song if I ever got the chance, much like Chuck Klosterman did for the song “Laura” from the same album as detailed in his book Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs. It’s not quite clear whom Joel is singing to here, or what ominous thing has transpired, but it makes for a very cinematic-sounding song.
2. “Roberta” – From the under-appreciated Streetlife Serenade album. A song that at first glance looks just to be another tune about a guy trying to woo a woman, at closer inspection in turns out that this is a love song for a prostitute. Joel’s voice is still young sounding here, but on many songs from the album he sounds world-weary and much older (“Last of the Big Time Spenders” and “The Great Suburban Showdown,” for example). Billy has always had interesting female characters fill his songs, but none so interesting as Roberta. The coda absolutely kills in this song, too.
3. “Summer, Highland Falls” – From Turnstiles. Granted, this is undoubtedly an album track that many folks are probably familiar with, as Joel has played it live on and off throughout his entire career. But for me, far above and beyond “New York State of Mind,” this is the crown jewel of Turnstiles. It has a whole feeling and sound and piano part that Billy never once again revisited, as if he knew he perfected it right here. The song is about relationships becoming familiar, when the sex has worn off, and the sofa has two permanent ass-impressions in the cushions. It’s one of Billy’s most touching tunes, and places his far beyond other singer-songwriters of the time who were tapping the sap for similar themes (and, undoubtedly, bigger hits).
4. “Sleeping With The Television On” – From Glass Houses. The Glass Houses album is a lot of fun all around, but this song mixes the New Wave with the rock bounce effortlessly. Another song about boy and girl, this one finds Joel singing to a “Diane” and realizing he doesn’t have the nerve to talk to her and express his feelings, so they’ll both just wind up going to sleep by the tube. It’s kind of a two-fer track, coming right after “I Don’t Want To Be Alone” on the album, which also finds Joel playing the nervous lothario. This definitely sounds like a song that came out in 1980, as does the entire album, really, but that’s part of its charm.
5. “The Great Wall of China” – From The River of Dreams. Honestly, this is the only song I can really stand on this album. But the reasons why are clear for me. It sounds like a leftover from The Nylon Curtain days. There’s a big sweeping intro, then it gets down to some darker-edged rocking, and then has some really bizarre mumblings about something or other during the fade that I’ve never been able to decipher. The rest of the album just goes on too long. I always felt that Billy started slipping around The Bridge album, but God knows that the stretch from it to Storm Front and then to The River of Dreams produced some huge hits for the man. And so it goes.
