With
our respective similarities
It's
either sadness or euphoria.”—Billy Joel, “Summer, Highland Falls,” from his Turnstiles
LP (1976)
Billy Joel
was born on this date in the Bronx in 1949. He has suffered his share of
critical brickbats over the years for being too “commercial” (he features
prominently in Jimmy Guterman and Owen McDonnell’s The Worst Rock ‘n’ Roll Records of All Time). But he has endured,
winning honor after honor (including membership in the Rock ‘n’ Roll Hall of
Fame and Kennedy Center Honors).
And
yet, with all the fame and the laurels, with all the great humor and high-energy
concert performances, he has also been subject to his share and more of demons.
His recent admission that “Summer, Highland Falls” was really about having
bipolar disorder was in keeping with the other times when he admitted to this
affliction in song: “You’re Only Human (Second Wind)” and “I Go to Extremes.”
Joel’s
concerts (especially his appearance at the all-star benefit for Hurricane Sandy
victims) serve as reminders of how much passion and conviction he brings to pop
music. I’m all for artists pursuing different creative avenues, but his one
venture into classical music, Fantasies
& Delusions, Op. 1-10, did not feature any memorable work. I continue
to hope that, like another New Yorker who spoke of the “damp, drizzly November
in my soul,” Herman Melville, he has one late-career masterpiece squirreled
away, unknown, as yet, to the world.
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