There are just some people you have never met that you nonetheless feel a kinship with. Billy Joel is one of several actors or performers I feel that for and with. It's because, yes, he's a New Yorker, born in the Bronx, like me, although unlike me he didn't grow up there, but in Long Island, where I barely ever set foot. I lived in the Bronx until I was 27, and peripatetically practicing law--moving to Los Angeles with dreams of breaking into the entertainment industry. And no matter where we have gone in this life (he far more places than me), we are always New Yorkers, with an energy and a sometime abrasiveness (I have often been critiqued or eschewed for being too pushy, although folks, I am one of the least pushy New Yorkers you'll ever meet; just spend a day there and you'd see--I'm a proverbial powder puff) that can turn people off or make them crazy. I am thinking of a secretary I had once who went to Human Resources asking to be reassigned, because I was too "intense". Yeah, that's it. New Yorkers. We are intense. Forty plus years in lazy Los Angeles never changed that in me. And having watched the five hour, two part story of his life called "Billy Joel: And So It Goes" recently, it surely never changed for Billy.
Billy Joel channeled a great deal of his intensity into being one of the most amazing performers ever. And a writer of lyrics that tapped into his intensity, and energy, and yep, moodiness. That's another thing we share. He dealt with his moodiness in a far more flamboyant way than I ever have, but it's something for which I feel a deep camaraderie. The other reason I feel such a kinship is that he and his music have been with me since 1973, and his second album, Piano Man. I was a 19 year old just beginning a gig that almost made me decide not to be the lawyer I did become, at our college radio station, WFUV, the "Radio Voice of Fordham University", where students did everything under the watchful eye of the late Frank Seitz, the seasoned professional. And Billy Joel was played and played.
Billy Joel is one of those people we say, "He's been part of the tapestry of my life." And how.
As you can see, on one of the returns for a visit to the East Coast, in 1987, I saw the now quite seasoned Billy Joel at the Meadowlands. This is a photo of my actual ticket for that performance. I know I saw him at least once at some other point, here in LA I think, but alas, my memory of the where and when is gone.
When it comes to affairs of the heart, well Billy has had quite a number, including marriages, something of which I cannot boast. My relationships were so few I can count them on one hand. Some might not even really properly be in the count. And they were very short. And they reflected my psychological avoidance of getting close. I have been the queen of the platonic relationship. I admire Billy for his high dives into the pool of love. And the pain concomitant, still it seems, unresolved, as he says in the song, "And So It Goes": "And every time I've held a rose it seems I only felt the thorns." Our wounds are quite different, but I suspect we can all sing some version of "And So It Goes". No matter who we are the reality is, there always is a thorn.
This puts me in mind of one of Billy's songs, a really popular one, "Only the Good Die Young", in which he sings about trying to get a Catholic school girl to let down her moral guard and have a sexual relationship with a bad boy. "I'd rather laugh with the sinners, than cry with the saints." I was a Catholic School girl. I am a Catholic adult. I remember feeling conflicted and that the combination of my strict in school upbringing and my psychological familial and individual context made me feel like I was locked away indeed, and that I was paying and would pay a price. That's been part of my thorn. "A price for the things that I might have done", as the song says. But when you watch the biography, there was a price for the things that Billy Joel did. The question always is--was it worth the price paid? What was the goal? What is the ending? Neither of us are yet at our ending, and I hope we have a long way to go.
I won't go too religious on y'all in this entry, but I think there is a lacunae in Billy Joel's thinking and pursuit. He came from a family of non-practicing Jews--though there was a devastating connection to the holocaust which no doubt always threaded its way into his psyche. He assumes a lot in that line in Only the Good Die Young, as many people do about laughing with the sinners and crying with the saints. Could it perhaps be faulty? As so often is the case, it misunderstands Catholic theology and the reality that hard though it is for us to see it, that God wants our happiness. How long does "laughing with the sinners" pertain? When you get to the end of the frolicking road in this life laughing away, what happens? And are the saints actually crying in the long term? Or is it the opposite, both in this life, and if you haven't closed off the idea of the transcendent, the next, sinners stop laughing and the saints breathe easy and joyfully. Let me clarify. We are all sinners. The key is repentance. Saints are repentant sinners.
Does the thorn have a purpose since we all have one? Is it perhaps to wake us up? That's the subject of another blog entry, or someone else's. Anyway, greater thinkers than me have opined on the meaning of life.
One thing I do know, is that Billy Joel is a seeker. He still is seeking. His music and lyrics alternately give pause and bring a smile.
And this biography is a wonderful snapshot of the complex, and brilliant Billy Joel.
I have added a plethora of his hits to my Amazon music playlist. Thanks, Billy!
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