Categories: Careers & Job Searching

Billy Joel’s 10 Best Songs Ever

Although I didn’t become a dedicated Billy Joel fan until my senior year in high school, his musical career happened to bloom during my childhood years. His first (and perhaps most popular) big hit, “Piano Man”” was released in 1973, the same year as my 10th birthday and it was probably one of the songs that I listened to with one of my first girlfriends during our make-out sessions in her bedroom around that time.

There were other Billy Joel songs that were a part of the soundtrack of my life even before I really started liking the Long Island-born and bred son of a German Jew who had fled the Nazis in the 1930s and a British born Jewish woman who taught her son to appreciate both the piano and classical music.

The most obvious one is “Just the Way You Are,” which was one of the most popular songs of 1978. When I first heard it, I didn’t like it; it’s theme of what someone really wants from his lover was and is very elementary as far as idealistic romantic emoting goes, but I was still getting over the pain of a break-up and was in no mood to be receptive to its “I said I love you/And that’s forever” message. (There is nothing like the onset of teenage cynicism to block out great music.)

The one song that I did like before 1983 was “My Life,” which seemed to echo my “don’t tell me what to do, I’m 16” feelings when I first heard it in the late 1970s. I found its melody to be catchy as hell, of course, but I always felt that its “I don’t care what you say anymore/this is my life” lyrics were reflective of my inner desire to be rebellious even though I wasn’t exactly the “Young Rebel’ type of kid at the time.

Eventually, though, my taste in music broadened somewhat when I was in high school, and by the time An Innocent Man was released in 1983, I was a very enthusiastic Billy Joel fan.

Because these “Best Songs” list are, by their very nature, very subjective and not objective, I can’t promise, Dear Reader, that my choices will reflect every Billy Joel fan’s “Best Songs” list.

So, without further ado (and with apologies to David Letterman’s Top 10 List), let’s get on with it.

10. Movin’ Out (Anthony’s Song) This song’s title should ring very familiar to most people; it is now also the title of the Twyla Tharp-choreographed Broadway show which uses Billy Joel songs to tell its narrative.

Like many of Joel’s songs, this is a “story” song with a varied cast of characters, ranging from the rebellious Anthony of the title to his loving but domineering mother. It not only highlights a young man’s angst at being told what to do at a certain age, but it also underscores Joel’s cynicism toward the “American Dream” he was taught about in school in the 1950s and early 1960s.

Anthony works in the grocery store
savin’ his pennies for someday
Mama Leone left a note on the door,
she said
“Sonny, move out to the country”
Workin’ too hard can give me
a heart attack
You oughta know by now
Who needs a house out in Hackensack?
Is that what you get with your money?

9. Two Thousand Years I’m not sure what this song is really all about; it seems to mix historical/mythological metaphors with some romantic ballad elements, but analyzing is, as they say, way above my pay grade. I like it a hell of a lot, though. It has a haunting, melancholic melody and a great backbeat by drummer Liberty De Vitto, as well as those mystical and mystifying lyrics.

In the beginning
There was the cold and the night
Prophets and angels gave us the fire and the light
Man was triumphant
Armed with the faith and the will
That even the darkest ages couldn’t kill

8. All About Soul I find this song to be sadly ironic; it was released in 1998 as part of Joel’s “final pop album” River of Dreams, with its cover art by his soon-to-be-ex, Christie Brinkley. I say it’s “sadly ironic” because the marriage was probably on the rocks when All About Soul was being composed.

She waits for me at night, she waits for me in silence
She gives me all her tenderness and takes away my pain
And so far she hasn’t run, though I swear she’s had her moments
She still believes in miracles while others cry in vain

7. Don’t Ask Me Why One of the things I absolutely love about Billy Joel’s music is how rich and varied it is. He is never content with sticking to one particular style or genre, but rather incorporates elements from many (jazz, Latin rhythm, ballads, and rock ‘n’ roll) into his original songs. Don’t Ask Me Why has lyrics that can fit in a standard-issue pop song but features a Latin-inspired melody and instrumental bridge that sounds oddly like a samba or something like that.

All your life you had to stand in line
Still you’re standing on your feet
All you choices made you change your mind
Now your calendar’s complete
Don’t wait for answers
Just take your chances
Don’t ask me why

6. This Is the Time Granted, Billy Joel’s The Bridge album only begat a couple of bona fide hits (A Matter of Trust being the biggest one), but this is a nice blend of wistful reflection and a well-developed melodic line.

We walked on the beach beside that old hotel
They’re tearin’ it down now, but it’s just as well
I haven’t shown you everything a man can do
So stay with me, baby
I’ve got plans for you

This is the time to remember
‘Cause it will not last forever
These are the days to hold on to
‘Cause we won’t, although we’ll want to
This is the time,
But time is gonna change
You’ve given me the best of you
But now I need the rest of you

5. We Didn’t Start the Fire This song is not only Billy Joel’s encapsulation of the first 40 years of his life (he wrote it in 1989 for the Storm Front album/tour), it’s also beloved by history teachers everywhere because its lyrics are a cleverly-presented Cliffs Notes version of world history from 1949 to 1989. Unlike most of his songs, it is not a piano-based song but rather an electric guitar-based one, pretty much in the same vein as
A Matter of Trust.

Harry Truman, Doris Day, Red China, Johnny Ray
South Pacific, Walter Winchell, Joe DiMaggio

Joe McCarthy, Richard Nixon, Studebaker, Television
North Korea, South Korea, Marilyn Monroe

Rosenbergs, H Bomb, Sugar Ray, Panmunjom
Brando, The King And I, and The Catcher In The Rye

Eisenhower, Vaccine, England’s got a new queen
Marciano, Liberace, Santayana goodbye

4. Honesty This song is also one of those in the album 52^nd Street which sort of endeared me to Billy’s songs before I became a “true” fan of his music. I was still getting over what I perceived was an unforgivable betrayal by my then-girlfriend and couldn’t express my feelings too well, so I let this song, and My Life, do so for me.

If you search for tenderness
It isn’t hard to find
You can have the love you need to live
But if you look for truthfulness
You might just as well be blind
It always seems to be so hard to give

Honesty is such a lonely word
Everyone is so untrue
Honesty is hardly ever heard
And mostly what I need from you

3. Goodnight, Saigon As a writer, listener, and former singer, I tend to love songs that tell stories, and this touching tribute by Joel to his friends that went to fight in the Vietnam War is both searing and heartbreaking.