What I Would Do if I Listed my Favourite Billy Joel Songs (part 2)

After a long day filled with school and homework and driving and memorizing and rehearsal for the school play, it's nice to be able to get back home and write on the blog. Thank you, blog, for providing a place to relax.

Today, I'll finish off my top ten list of my favorite Billy Joel songs. As I'm pressed for time and tomorrow is an important day for me, let's get right into it.

5. It's Still Rock and Roll to me

This song has quite a lot going for it. A catchy beat, variation throughout the song, and people clapping in unison all make for a top-five kind of song. In the end I must say that it was the clapping that did it for me. I have a weakness for anything done in unison, and even a half dozen people clapping together two or three times in a song makes me love it. Yeah, I have some weird ideas as to what makes a song a masterpiece.

4. My Life

"My life" is another song that I only recently found. Something about the instrumentals in this song just clicked for me, and I found that the singing complimented said instrumentals well. The tipping facotr from great to wonderfull? I took a "what Billy Joel song are you" test and got "My Life" as a result.

3. Uptown Girl

I'm quite confident that "Uptown Girl" was the first Billy Joel song that I ever listened to. My dad used to play this in the car, and I'd nod my head along to it as we zipped from place to place. 

Perhaps my favorite thing about this song is that you can't listen to it without feeling happy. Here we have a happy guy singing happily to a happy tune. You can't help but join in the fun! And like "Piano Man," this song has one section which really gets me every time. Impossible to replicate here, the part where he does that singing-without-words bit is awesome. There must be a word for non-worded singing. Laura?

2. Only the Good Die Young

Man, I love this song. Like so many of Billy's songs, the entire song is carried by a great beat that you can't help but nod along to. "Only the Good Die Young" can also lift you up from any mood to a better one, much like Uptown Girl. What more can you ask of a song?

1. Vienna

After so many upbeat and uplifting songs so high in my top ten, perhaps it will come as a surprise to you to see that my top spot is occupied by a slower, more reflective song.

The lyrics are the driving factor in this song. From my own interpretation, and several visits to songmeanings.com, I have an idea of what the song may or may not be about. To me, the song is saying that you should have ambition in life, but that you should also be satisfied with what you have. Something about that just runs true to me. The singer of the song is clearly advising someone, although in what context, who can say? Joel has written several lines to this person that support my theory. Some of my favorites include the opening line that goes "Slow down, you crazy child. You're so ambitious for a juvenile, but then if you're so smart, tell me why are you still so afraid?" as well as "You've got your passion, you've got your pride, but don't you know that only fools are satisfied? Dream on, but don't imagine it'll all come true." Arn't those so poetic? 

I've listened to this song so many times that it's probably unhealthy. I remember that when I first found this song several summers ago, I showed it to Laura quite early on. We then had several nights where we'd sit and listen to "Vienna" on repeat. Focused almost exclusively on the song. This was all done on the East coast where we stay in our cabin for the summer, and by the time we got back home the song had already amassed 70 plays. Nowadays, it has over 200 plays on the home itunes play counter.

Billy Joel is in my mind an underappreciated artist. Few people in my generation have even heard of him, and I find that to be practically a sin. So, this is what you must do, dear reader. Listen to these Billy Joel songs. Fall in love with the music. Then spread the word! This especially means you, Russian robot. I'm sure that you visit thousands of blogs every day where you can spam comments about Billy Joel. I'm counting on you, man (/women/spambot)

Thanks for reading,

-Mark

I'd like to dedicate this post to the Russian Robots of the world, who visited this blog twenty-odd times a few days ago. Thanks for that. I'd also like to thank the similar number of Swiss people/robots who did a similar thing a day or two following the Russians. My hat is off to you two.