Line #132 Music/BillyJoel


1	[[quoteright:192:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/billy_joel_003_891.jpg]]
2	[[caption-width-right:192:Sing us a song tonight.]]
3
4	->''"I am the entertainer\
5	And I know just where I stand."''
6	-->--"The Entertainer"
7
8	William Martin Joel (born May 9, 1949) is an American singer, pianist, songwriter, and classical composer. Originally from the Bronx, New York, he is the fourth-best-selling solo artist in the United States[[note]]Music/GarthBrooks, Music/ElvisPresley, and Music/MichaelJackson are first, second, and third respectively[[/note]], with 33 Top 40 hits and six Grammy Awards to his name. As his 1973 breakout hit "Piano Man" implies, he is a skilled piano player, and many of his most famous songs have strong keyboard elements.
9
10	His discography has a wide range of styles, including schmaltzy SoftRock love songs that perhaps reveal TooMuchInformation about his relationships (especially that with ex-wife [[UptownGirl Christie Brinkley]]), tributes to 1950s artists and stylings, attempts at working class rock comparable to Music/BruceSpringsteen, jazzy ruminations on fame, religion, substance abuse (something he has experience in), or his hometown of New York City, bluesy piano numbers, and pure classical compositions. Said range contributed to the formation of ''[[Theatre/MovinOut Movin' Out]]'', one of the first and best known examples of the JukeboxMusical. He is also known for voicing Dodger in the Disney animated film ''WesternAnimation/OliverAndCompany''.
11
12	Joel has mostly retired from pop songwriting and recording since the late '90s, but he still tours quite frequently, sometimes with close friend Music/EltonJohn. He is currently the "artist-in-residence" at Madison Square Garden, playing at least one show there every month for several years (when [[UsefulNotes/COVID19Pandemic venues are open, anyways]]).
13
14	References to his songs come up in pop culture quite a bit: among them a second season episode of ''Series/AmericanIdol'' had the contestants singing songs from his catalog, he's been the musical guest on four episodes of ''Series/SaturdayNightLive'' (missing his 10-year high school reunion in 1977 so he could make his first such appearance), an entire episode of ''Series/FreaksAndGeeks'' was dedicated to his music (and surprisingly, kept all of it for the DVD), and a classic ''Series/SesameStreet'' [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hHC3M7KL2ns skit]] has him serenading Oscar the Grouch along with Creator/MarleeMatlin.
15
16	Not to be confused with [[Music/GreenDay Billie Joe]], [[Literature/OutOfTheDust Billie Jo]], or Music/BillyIdol.
17	----
18	!! Discography
19
20	[[AC:As part of other bands]]
21	* With The Hassles
22	** ''The Hassles'' (1967)
23	** ''Hour of the Wolf'' (1969)
24	* Attila, an early 1970s PsychedelicRock band, whose first and only album is often called [[invoked]][[BileFascination "one of the worst albums ever recorded"]].
25	** ''Music/{{Attila}}'' (1970)
26
27	[[AC:Solo discography]]
28	'''Studio albums'''
29	[[index]]
30	* ''Cold Spring Harbor'' (1971)
31	* ''Piano Man'' (1973)
32	* ''Streetlife Serenade'' (1974)
33	* ''Turnstiles'' (1976)
34	* ''Music/{{The Stranger\|Album}}'' (1977)
35	* ''Music/FiftySecondStreet'' (1978)
36	* ''Music/GlassHouses'' (1980)
37	* ''Songs in the Attic''[[note]]Live-in-the-studio re-recordings of select songs from his pre-1977 albums, made with his band at the time to give the songs a harder edge.[[/note]] (1981)
38	* ''The Nylon Curtain'' (1982)
39	* ''Music/AnInnocentMan'' (1983)
40	* ''The Bridge'' (1986)
41	* ''Music/{{Storm Front\|Album}}'' (1989)
42	* ''River of Dreams'' (1993)
43	* ''Fantasies & Delusions'' [[note]]A selection of Joel-composed classical piano pieces performed by Richard Joo. Usually credited to Joel on streaming services, in record stores, etc., though he doesn't play a note.[[/note]] (2001)
44	[[/index]]
45
46	'''Live albums'''
47	* ''Концерт'' (Kontsert) (1987) – Recorded during the UsefulNotes/{{Soviet\|RussiaUkraineAndSoOn}} leg of his supporting tour for ''The Bridge''.
48	** Re-released in 2014 as ''A Matter of Trust: The Bridge to Russia'', with 11 additional tracks.
49	* ''2000 Years: The Millennium Concert'' (2000)
50	* ''12 Gardens Live'' (2006) – Recorded during a run of 12 sold-out concerts at Madison Square Garden in 2006.
51	* ''Live at Shea Stadium: The Concert'' (2011) – Recorded during two July 2008 concerts that were the last at Shea Stadium before it was torn down to make way for Citi Field.
52	* ''Live at Carnegie Hall 1977'' (released in 2019)
53	* ''Live at the Great American Music Hall 1975'' (released in 2023)
54
55	----
56	!! "Sing us a trope, you're the piano man, sing us a trope tonight":
57	* ACappella: "The Longest Time". Slight aversion in that, while it's become a cappella standard, the original version on ''An Innocent Man'' included a bass guitar.
58	* AlbumTitleDrop: ''Cold Spring Harbor'' comes from a line in "Everybody Loves You Now".
59	* AmbiguousSituation: The captain of the ''Alexa'' in "The Downeaster Alexa" sets sail for Martha's Vineyard, but on the way diverts to Nantucket, for no given reason.
60	* AmicableExes: Despite rumors to the contrary, Joel and Creator/ChristieBrinkley remained friends after their divorce, and supposed animosity for her was ''not'' the reason he stopped performing "Uptown Girl" live.[[note]]He actually found it increasingly hard to sing it in the falsetto sound he used to record it, since it was stylistically an homage to Music/FrankieValliAndTheFourSeasons.[[/note]]
61	* ApocalypseHow: "Miami 2017 (Seen The Lights Go Out On Broadway)", seems to be an example of Class 0.
62	* ArsonMurderAndJaywalking: "We Didn't Start the Fire" is full of these, with a rant-inducing slight that pushes him over the edge:
63	-->''Rock and roller cola wars\
64	[[LargeHam I CAN'T TAKE IT ANYMORE!!!]]''
65	** In "You May Be Right" there was this bit:
66	-->''I was stranded in the combat zone,''\
67	''I walked through Bedford Stuy alone,''\
68	''Even rode my motorcycle in the rain.''[[note]]Any cyclist will tell you this is dangerous, however.[[/note]]
69	** And this from "Blonde Over Blue":
70	-->''In Hell there's a big [[HellHotel hotel]]''\
71	''Where the bar just closed and the windows never open.''\
72	''No phone, so you can't call home,''\
73	''[[FirstWorldProblems And the TV works, but the clicker is broken.]]''
74	* ArtisticLicenseHistory: "The Ballad of Billy the Kid", hoo boy. It has almost nothing to do with the historical Billy the Kid, and Joel has acknowledged as such, describing the song as a Western movie.
75	** For starters, the real man wasn't a bank robber.
76	** He was gunned down by a sheriff, not hanged.
77	** He wasn’t from West Virginia either, having been born in New York City and raised in Indiana, Kansas, and New Mexico.
78	* AudienceParticipationSong: Joel's performances of "Piano Man" these days tend to consist of him pointing the microphone at the crowd and letting them sing the entire song.
79	* AuthorAvatar: Averted in "The Ballad of Billy the Kid." According to Joel, the Billy from Oyster Bay was a bartender named Billy he knew from his Long Island days.
80	* AwardBaitSong: "The Ballad Of Billy The Kid" is made to sound like one of these. Joel had always wanted to write a movie theme song, but never got the offer.
81	* BalladOfX: "The Ballad Of Billy The Kid".
82	* {{Ballet}}: The young granddaughter in the “We Didn’t Start the Fire” music video is shown twirling in a tutu and tights.
83	* {{Bathos}}: One of the observations about life in the trenches of UsefulNotes/TheVietnamWar in "Goodnight Saigon" is "we had no soft soap." It probably also counts as a LyricalShoehorn, since it's basically there to rhyme with "CReator/BobHope" in the next line.
84	* BerserkButton:
85	** Infamously, "''[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PqY6mXULzpw STOP LIGHTING THE AUDIENCE!]]''" For context, this was during a show that he was playing behind the Iron Curtain in the former Soviet Union. During the show, the Secret Police used the lighting to pick out rowdy audience members, essentially making them afraid to show any hint of having fun. Quoth Billy later of the incident, "I didn't throw a tantrum, I threw a piano."
86	** In a sense, his irritation with having been compared with fellow piano-based singer-songwriter (and future touring partner) Music/EltonJohn in TheSeventies may also count, as he felt he had his own sound and style, and record executives tried to push him towards an Elton-like sound early in his career. Early, unsuccessful attempts to record ''Turnstiles'' saw Columbia Records set him up to record with Elton's "classic" band (Davey Johnstone, Dee Murray, and Nigel Olsson). [[{{Irony}} Then he did a concert with Elton in Yankee Stadium in 1989, became close friends, and co-headlined several tours with him.]]
87	** A mild one that he eventually got over: according to Joel himself, many people thought that "Piano Man" was actually a Harry Chapin song that Joel would perform in his concerts; Chapin was well known for his story songs, and Joel admitted that "Piano Man" did fit the mold. For a time, Joel was miffed when people would make the comment, but he eventually took it as a compliment, as he felt that Chapin, "wrote the best story songs."
88	* BigApplesauce: In addition to being from Long Island, his songs are sprinkled with geography references from New York City and the surrounding Tri-State Area metropolis.
89	* BookEnds: The fade-out of "Where's the Orchestra?", the final song on ''The Nylon Curtain'', contains an instrumental snippet of the main melody of "Allentown", the album's first song.
90	** Similarly, the ending of ''The Stranger'' is entitled "Everybody Has A Dream/The Stranger (Reprise)" because that song ends with a repeat of the opening strains of "The Stranger".
91	* BrieferThanTheyThink: Joel has been in the music business for over 40 years yet produced only 12 studio albums as a solo artist, although they were in the span of 15 years.
92	* BrutalHonesty[=/=]TheReasonYouSuckSpeech: "Big Shot", "Pressure", and "Everybody Loves You Now".
93	* ByTheEyesOfTheBlind: Referenced word-for-word in "River of Dreams".
94	* CallingYourAttacks: In the song "A Room of Our Own" off ''The Nylon Curtain'', following the second chorus, Billy calls out "Bridge!" just before the bridge begins.
95	* TheCameo:
96	** Creator/RodneyDangerfield appears in the "Tell Her About It" video.
97	** Creator/RichardPryor, Joe Piscopo, and Christie Brinkley make appearances in the video for "Keeping the Faith." Christie also cameos in "Uptown Girl."
98	* CatholicSchoolgirlsRule: "Only The Good Die Young".
99	* CelebrityIsOverrated: The central theme behind the lyrics of "The Entertainer," which lists the amount of stress and hard work an artist needs to endure just to stay relevant in the charts. By the end verses what started out somewhat calm now has the singer absolutely livid.
100	* ConceptAlbum: ''An Innocent Man'' consists [[{{Retraux}} entirely of pastiches]] of the music Joel grew up listening to. The most notable singles are the Ben E. King-flavored title track, Music/FrankieValliAndTheFourSeasons-esque "Uptown Girl", the Marley-influenced "Keeping The Faith", the Motown-style "Tell Her About It", and the a cappella doo-wop "The Longest Time".
101	* CoolShades: His trademark Wayfarers, which he wears in many music videos, most famously "We Didn't Start The Fire". His character from the movie ''WesternAnimation/OliverAndCompany'', Dodger, wears a pair as well.
102	* DarkerAndEdgier: Both ''Glass Houses'' and especially ''The Nylon Curtain'' are this compared to Joel's other albums. ''Storm Front'' and especially ''River Of Dreams'' are this compared to ''An Innocent Man'' and ''The Bridge''. It didn't help that [[invoked]][[CreatorBreakdown Joel's financial issues and eventual divorce from Christie Brinkley]] happened during this time period, and it's reflected in many of the songs from this time.
103	* DeadAir: Billy Joel invoked a live-performance version of this trope during the 1994 Grammy Award Show. The director of the show cut short Frank Sinatra's acceptance speech for receiving the Lifetime Achievement Award, and this pissed Joel off to the point that he [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oPCx0lO1f_w&t=155s stopped his performance of "The River of Dreams" in the middle.]] He sat there, grinning at the audience, while pretending to check his watch, and quipped, "Valuable advertising time going by." After wasting around 30 seconds, he resumed playing the song.
104	-->'''Billy''': Valuable advertising time going by. . . \
105	({{Beat}})\
106	'''Billy''': Valuable advertising time going by. . . \
107	({{Beat}})\
108	'''Billy''': Dollars, dollars, dollars. . . \
109	([[{{Beat}} Long beat]])\
110	'''Billy''': ''shit-eating grin at the audience''\
111	([[{{Beat}} Long beat]])\
112	'''Billy''': In the middle of the night. . .
113	** In concert, he still tends to extend the middle of the song (which had a natural pause in the first place) as a reminder of the stunt. In fact, during his live concert in Shea Stadium, he played "A Hard Day's Night" during that "pause".
114	* DeadpanSnarker: Billy is this in ''many'' songs.
115	** That side of him comes out in recent live performances, and in spades during his songwriting seminars, if the Q+A videos posted on his website are any indication. Also comes with a fair amount of SelfDeprecation.
116	* DoNotCallMePaul: Billy is ''not'' fond of being called "William,"[[note]]Even though the [[Series/TheEdSullivanShow Ed Sullivan]] character in the video for "Tell Her About It" does that after his performance[[/note]] and actually prefers "Bill" to "Billy".
117	* {{Documentary}}:
118	** ''Last Play at Shea'', which used his July 16th and 18th 2008 concerts at [[UsefulNotes/MajorLeagueBaseball the New York Mets' Shea Stadium]], the last ones ever performed there before the building was demolished, as a launchpad for covering his career, the history of American suburbia on Long Island, and of the Mets.
119	** There are also ''The Bridge to Russia'' and ''A Matter of Trust'', both TV documentaries about his historic tour in the USSR released decades apart.
120	* DyingTown: "Allentown", which is about the decline of the steel industry in Allentown and nearby Bethlehem in eastern UsefulNotes/{{Pennsylvania}}. Some of Allentown's residents weren't fond of how Billy depicted the city, but others embraced it after it became a hit.
121	* EarlyInstallmentWeirdness: His short-lived heavy metal band Attila and their one self-titled album from 1970. Often listed as one of the worst LP's of all time and disowned by Joel.
122	* EchoingAcoustics:
123	** "Miami 2017 (Seen the Light Go Out on Broadway)" has a weird reverb effect added to it.
124	** As he mentions in his live album ''Songs in the Attic'', the song "demands the gothic reverberation of a vast railroad terminus, such as Madison Square Garden."
125	* EpicRocking: "Goodnight Saigon" (7:04), "Captain Jack" (7:15), and "Scenes from an Italian Restaurant" (7:37), which feature an opening of helicopters, a building crescendo, and an interlude across three distinct sections, respectively.
126	** The "Prelude" section of "Angry Young Man" is about two minutes going back and forth between five different tempos, including some of the fastest piano-playing you've ever heard.
127	** {{Lampshaded}} in "The Entertainer" when he complains "It was a beautiful song / But it ran too long / If you're gonna have a hit / You gotta make it fit / So they cut it down to 3:05".
128	* TheEveryman: According to Joel, "Anthony's Song" (or "Movin' Out) is not about someone named Anthony; the name is supposed to represent "every Irish, Polish, and Italian kid trying to make a living in the U.S."
129	* ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin: Joel is continually exasperated by fans and music critics alike who try to delve into his lyrics for deep symbolic meanings. He has repeatedly said that, while he occasionally uses innuendo, he's never hidden the meaning of his song by using confusing or obfuscatory lyrics.
130	-->'''Billy Joel:''' "Why is there a line about being on a Greyhound in "New York State of Mind"? Because I was literally riding on a bus moving back to New York City when I was writing it."
131	* FakeOutFadeOut: "You Picked a Real Bad Time"
132	* {{Fingore}}: When Joel crashed his motorcycle in 1982, his left thumb was crushed and his right wrist was almost pulled out of his socket. Since then, Joel has no bone in his left thumb.
133	* FlippingTheTable: Joel does this at the end of the climactic verse in the video for "We Didn't Start The Fire".
134	** He also once ''flipped a piano'' (albeit a small, lightweight one), see BerserkButton for the full story.
135	* {{Genre Bust\|ing}}er:
136	** If you had to classify it, you'd probably call it "piano-based rock and roll," but Joel's music has an extremely wide range of styles.
137	* GenreRoulette: He's gone from pop to Southwestern funk to soul to Music/AaronCopland-like ballads to a ''classical music'' album in a late Romantic style somewhat reminiscent of Claude Debussy or Charles Gounod. He even emulated Music/TheBeatles -- Music/JohnLennon in particular -- in the B side of the ''Nylon Curtain'' album. He also stated that "We Didn't Start the Fire" was originally going to be a [[invoked]]''[[WhatCouldHaveBeen rap]]'' song.
138	** The "Prelude" to "Angry Young Man" veers around ''several'' music styles before heading into the main song.
139	* GlassShatteringSound: He hit a lot of very high notes on ''An Innocent Man'', recorded when he was arguably at the peak of his vocal powers. He later explained that he felt he'd never be able to get that high again, so he decided to go all out on this album. Indeed, by his next album, ''The Bridge'', his voice was noticeably deeper.
140	** Of course there is also a [[ComicallyMissingThePoint literal one of these]] to begin the album ''Glass Houses''.
141	* GreatestHitsAlbum: Several. The first, a two-disc set titled ''Greatest Hits Volume I & Volume II'' and originally released in 1985, has been certified at the 23x Platinum level.
142	* HeavyMeta: "It's Still Rock and Roll To Me", "The Entertainer"
143	* HistoricalBiographySong: "The Ballad of Billy the Kid" details Billy's rise to infamy, his crimes throughout the American west, and his eventual death at the hands of a judge. None of it's accurate, so it's more like a Historical Romanticization Song as noted above and below.
144	* {{Homage}}: All the songs on ''An Innocent Man'' are InTheStyleOf songs from the '50s and '60s. "Uptown Girl" was Frankie Valli, "The Longest Time" was a quickened doo-wop style, "Easy Money" was [[Creator/StaxRecords Stax/Volt]], "Tell Her About It" was Creator/{{Motown}}, and "An Innocent Man" was Ben E. King and the Drifters.
145	** Several other songs on other albums are also homages: "Until the Night" to The Righteous Brothers, "Say Goodbye to Hollywood" to the Ronettes, and "Running on Ice" borrows heavily from The Police.
146	** The entire B side of ''The Nylon Curtain'' is one to Music/TheBeatles.
147	* HotBlooded: In his younger days. He had a reputation of responding to negative reviews by tearing up copies of the reviewer's newspaper or magazine. He would get into arguments with musicians (for example when he and Liberty [=DeVitto=] had a dispute over Joel's original intent for "Only The Good Die Young" to be a {{reggae}} song), and many of his songs tended to have {{angst}}y or confrontational lyrics. It's surprising to see Joel in modern times as kind yet snarky.
148	* IWantSong: "Easy Money".
149	* IdenticalStranger: Bore a surprising resemblance to [[http://media.tumblr.com/tumblr_ljco2etrQE1qe4mcd.png Lou]] [[http://media.tumblr.com/tumblr_ljco1sveuA1qe4mcd.png Reed]] in TheSeventies.
150	* InkSuitActor: Dodger in ''WesternAnimation/OliverAndCompany'' is basically Billy Joel as a ''dog''.
151	* IntercourseWithYou:
152	** "Only the Good Die Young", though {{subverted\|Trope}} - the singer fails to seduce Virginia.
153	** "Sometimes a Fantasy", over the ''phone''
154	* JobSong:
155	** "Piano Man" is about a piano player at a bar whose playing makes the patrons forget about their troubles.
156	** "The Entertainer" is about a rock singer and the compromises he's had to make in order to stay on the charts.
157	* JustTheWayYouAre: [[invoked]]{{Trope Namer\|s}}
158	* KarmaHoudini: "Surprises". Joel tells the listener not to worry - whatever horrible thing they just did (which is [[NoodleIncident never revealed]]) won't be a problem, with the help of a little destruction of the evidence.
159	* KavorkaMan: He's short, bald and was never particularly handsome, even in his youth. Nonetheless, he's never had a problem gaining the attention of very attractive women and has been married four times.
160	* LetsDuet: Music/CyndiLauper in "Code of Silence", Music/RayCharles in "Baby Grand".
161	* LifeOfTheParty: "Big Shot" is based on the darker version of this trope.
162	* LighterAndSofter: ''An Innocent Man'' compared to the two albums that preceded it.
163	* ListSong: "We Didn't Start The Fire"
164	* LonelyAtTheTop: ''Everybody Loves You Now."
165	-->''Oh loneliness will get to you somehow''\
166	''but everybody loves you now''
167	* LonelyTogether: "Piano Man" provides that page's quote.
168	* LyricalDissonance: Extremely frequent. Notable examples include "Miami 2017 (Seen the Lights Go Out on Broadway)", "You're Only Human (Second Wind)", "The Entertainer", and "Allentown".
169	* {{Manipulative B\|astard}}itch: "Laura" (with a healthy dollop of PassiveAggressiveKombat) and "She's Always a Woman". "Stiletto" is the rare case in which the protagonist knows she's one, but enjoys it. [[invoked]]WordOfGod said it was about any female performer who has the audience in their hands.
170	* MeaningfulName: ''Virgin''ia from "Only the Good Die Young"
171	* MoneySong: "Easy Money", from the Creator/RodneyDangerfield [[Film/EasyMoney movie of the same name]].
172	* MyGodWhatHaveIDone: Played with in "Surprises".
173	* NiceGirl: The subject of "Tell Her About It".
174	* NonAppearingTitle: "Summer Highland Falls," "Goodnight Saigon," "Scenes From An Italian Restaurant," "Travelin' Prayer." "Famous Last Words" is close, as the line is "These are the last words I have to say" (which was true, as it was the last song on his last studio album that ''had'' lyrics.)
175	* NostalgiaFilter:
176	** The entire reason behind "We Didn't Start the Fire". According to Joel, he was tired of younger people talking about how what a mess the present was, and how idyllic it was in the '50s and '60s, and his having to mention, "Well, this happened and that happened..."
177	** Averted in "The Great Suburban Showdown", in which he points out the mild hypocrisy of family reunions and how some family members desperately cling to the past.
178	* OddCouple: Joel and his former wife Christie Brinkley
179	* ThePianoPlayer: "Piano Man" is famously from the perspective of a pianist playing a gig at the local bar, as the regular cast of barflies makes requests and sings along to forget their troubles.
180	* PowerOfTrust: "Honesty" is practically the musical TropeCodifier.
181	* PrecisionFStrike: Billy swears quite a bit in interviews and concerts, but his songwriting is mostly clean. An exception is "Laura" from the album ''The Nylon Curtain'', the only song in Joel's entire discography to contain an F-bomb.
182	** He gets a ''lot'' of mileage out of milder curses in his lyrics, precisely because they're so rare. A prime example is in "Big Shot":
183	-->And when you wake up in the morning with your head on fire\
184	And your eyes too bloody to see\
185	Go on and cry in your coffee but don't come bitching to me.
186	* PsychoStrings: Featured in "We Didn't Start the Fire" when the TropeNamer is mentioned.
187	* RapidFireNo: In "Big Shot":
188	-->No, no, no, no, no, no, you have to be a big shot, didn't you?
189	* RealLifeWritesThePlot:
190	** "Piano Man" is very biographical. He was supporting himself by playing in a piano bar while waiting out a bad record deal and thought no one would believe his story, so he wrote a song about it. Everyone in the song is based on a real person.
191	** ''An Innocent Man'', an upbeat and nostalgic album reflected Billy's bachelorhood and newfound romances with Christie Brinkley and Creator/ElleMacPherson. He would write "And So It Goes" about his and [=MacPherson=]'s relationship, knowing it couldn't last. ''River Of Dreams'' reflected Billy and Christie's marital woes and eventual divorce, along with Billy's legal issues (his ex-brother-in-law, who managed Billy's finances, was found to have cheated him for millions of dollars).
192	** ''Turnstiles'' was written and recorded at a time when Billy and his first wife relocated to [[BigApplesauce New York City]] after leaving California, and songs like "New York State Of Mind", "Say Goodbye To Hollywood" and "Summer, Highland Falls" (as well as the album cover, shot in an abandoned NYC subway station) reflect the move. "Summer, Highland Falls" also reflects the depression both were facing at the time.
193	* ReallyGetsAround: "The Entertainer" mentions this:
194	-->''I am the entertainer, I've been all around the world.
195	-->''I've played all kinds of palaces and laid all kinds of girls.
196	* TheReasonYouSuckSpeech: A few, but highlighted by "Big Shot".
197	* RenaissanceMan: Well, only in a musical sense, but Billy Joel's songs do span a wide range of genres and sounds.
198	* RockMeAmadeus: "This Night" is based on the second movement of Music/LudwigVanBeethoven's "Pathetique". Makes sense, since he has cited Beethoven as one of his biggest influences.
199	** "Souvenir" incorporates a part of Chopin's "Raindrop" prelude in the opening.
200	** Likewise, "Leningrad" subtly interpolates a part of Tchaikovsky's Violin Concerto in D major.
201	* RockStarSong: "The Entertainer", "Everybody Loves You Now".
202	* SadClown:
203	** A quite literal example in "Leningrad", about a Russian who used to be a soldier but took up a decidedly apolitical job as a clown because it made children laugh.
204	** During a live performance in 2008 of "She's Always A Woman", a man in the audience proposed to his girlfriend. Billy noticed this and congratulated the couple, before jokingly adding [[SelfDeprecation "Get a prenup!"]]. At the time, Billy's own marriage was starting to fall apart and he realized that, in a stadium full of people, he was the only one not laughing at the joke.
205	* SeductionLyric: “Only the Good Die Young” is a famous (or notorious) example. ("Come out Virginia, don't make me wait.") Its cynicism about conventional morality ("You Catholic Girls start much too late, But sooner or later it comes down to fate") made it somewhat controversial when it was first released.
206	* SelfBackingVocalist: "The Longest Time", "Through the Long Night", "Until the Night".
207	* SelfDeprecation: The cover of the 1991 "Shameless" single, when it was re-released as a single after being covered by Music/GarthBrooks, is a letter from Columbia Records congratulating Joel on his first country hit as a songwriter.
208	* SillyRabbitIdealismIsForKids: ''Pressure''.
209	-->All your life is [[Creator/{{PBS}} Channel 13]], Series/SesameStreet
210	-->What does it mean?
211	* SingleStanzaSong: "Souvenir".
212	* SlidingScaleOfIdealismVersusCynicism: Nearly all of his songs are on the cynicism side ("Pressure" being the most cynical), which makes his idealistic songs, such as "New York State of Mind" and "Scenes From an Italian Restaurant", stand out.
213	* SomethingSomethingLeonardBernstein: "We Didn't Start The Fire," which has often been accused of being a rip-off of the [[invoked]]{{Trope Namer\|s}}, Music/{{REM}}'s "It's the End of the World As We Know It (And I Feel Fine)," as a result.[[note]]Of course, since "We Didn't Start The Fire" started life as a ''rap song'', it's highly doubtful Joel was copying R.E.M.[[/note]]
214	* TheStoner: "Captain Jack", perhaps the most accurate deconstruction of the life of a college stoner.
215	* TheSomethingSong: "Weekend Song"
216	* StopAndGo: "River of Dreams"
217	* SurrealMusicVideo: "Pressure", an early example from 1982 directed by RussellMulcahy.
218	* TakeThat:
219	** "Getting Closer" from ''The Bridge'' is one to his first manager Artie Ripp. "The Great Wall of China" from ''River of Dreams'' is one to Frank Weber, his ex-brother in law who replaced Ripp as his manager. Both were caught swindling Billy of his money at various times in his career.
220	** "Big Shot" mocks a woman with a severe hangover for her intoxicated escapades around town. It is known that it's based on real-life woman, but Joel refuses to say just ''who'' the song is about. There are popular theories, however.
221	** "Only The Good Die Young" doesn't paint a very flattering picture of Catholicism. The Catholic parents in the song are accused of repressing Virginia and denying her life experiences. Her mother is also called out for having never said a prayer for the protagonist. Before he played a concert in St. Louis on the Stranger tour, Billy received a death threat from a Catholic group regarding the content of the song. He responded by playing it five times that night.
222	* TakeThatCritics:
223	** Early in his career, Billy had a habit of tearing up newspapers that had given him bad reviews during his live concerts.
224	** Billy [[http://www.stuff.co.nz/sunday-star-times/entertainment/more-entertainment-stories/572960 called out]] a critic who had been polite when they met, yet went on to bash the artist's work in his article, [[TemptingFate believing it would not actually be read by Joel]]. Billy still invited the critic to attend his show, yet suggested he wear a hockey mask for his own protection.
225	** "It's Still Rock and Roll To Me" takes a jab at how music critics try to tell people who's worth listening to: "There's a new band in town, but you can't get the sound from a story in a magazine aimed at your average teen."
226	** ''Glass Houses,'' both in its title and album art depicting Billy literally about to throw a rock at a glass house, were his way of "casting the first stone" (i.e., calling out the [[CausticCritic caustic critics]] before they even listened to the album to judge it).
227	* TemptingFate: In "Modern Woman", the protagonist asks, "And after 1986, what else could be new?" three years before the start of the fall of the Soviet Union. Then Billy penned "We Didn't Start the Fire" which, by his own description, was pretty much a chronicle of the UsefulNotes/ColdWar (and included the line, "What else do I have to say?", albeit not meant literally). The imminent political upheavals in 1989 made Billy want to hurry up and release ''Storm Front'' (the album that contained "We Didn't Start the Fire") ASAP.
228	* TenorBoy: Thanks to his singing voice.
229	* ThatsAllFolks: ''Famous Last Words,'' the final track from ''River of Dreams,'' where Joel sings "These are the last words I'll have to say."
230	* TitleOnlyChorus: '''PRESSURE'''
231	* TitleThemeTune: ''Film/EasyMoney''.
232	* TitleTrack: ''Piano Man'', ''The Stranger'', ''52nd Street'', ''An Innocent Man'', and ''Storm Front'' all have songs which share their exact titles with the album on which they are found. Two others, ''Streetlife Serenade''[[note]]song: "Streetlife Serenader"[[/note]] and ''River of Dreams''[[note]]song: "The River of Dreams"[[/note]] aren't ''exact'' matches, but come close enough for most to consider them title tracks anyway.
233	* TrashTheSet: At the end of the [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z4lh4Ahl46E "She's Right On Time" video.]]
234	* TwentyMinutesIntoTheFuture: "Miami 2017 (Seen The Lights Go Out On Broadway)", recorded in 1976.
235	* UglyGuyHotWife: A mild example, but during his marriage with Christie Brinkley, he was somewhat self conscious about being married to a beautiful supermodel and wondered why she would be interested in someone like him. It's the genesis of "Uptown Girl", about being a "low class guy" who somehow snagged a beautiful, rich woman.
236	* UptownGirl: [[invoked]]{{Trope Namer\|s}}. Joel began to write the song for his then-girlfriend Elle [=McPherson=], but it ended up becoming a tribute to Christie Brinkley, who married Joel after starring in the song's video.
237	* VeryLooselyBasedOnATrueStory: "The Ballad of Billy the Kid" doesn't let history get in the way of a good story. About the only thing it gets right is that he was an outlaw. Although Joel admits he was never going for accuracy and wrote the song as "an experiment with an impressionist type of lyric".
238	** The real Billy the Kid was from New York, not West Virginia.
239	** He is not known to have robbed any banks. Rather, he gained notoriety as a cattle rustler and participant in the Lincoln County War.
240	** No records ever place him in Colorado, Utah, or Oklahoma. His most famous activities were pretty much all in the New Mexico territory.
241	** The song claims he always rode alone, but he actually rode with the Lincoln County Regulators for much of his criminal career.
242	** He was shot to death, not hanged.
243	* VocalDissonance: You wouldn't expect a short, unsightly, bulbous-nosed, Jewfro'ed guy to have such a smooth tenor voice, but he does.
244	* VocalEvolution: An enforced one: his performance at The Concert For New York City, which he did against doctor's orders, caused a blood vesicle to burst in his throat which drastically deepened his voice and forced him to transpose all of his songs a half-step lower to accommodate this.
245	** Subtly, his first two albums ''Cold Spring Harbor'' and ''Piano Man'' do feature Joel at times using a fast, slightly theatrical vibrato which he seemed to drop on subsequent albums as his music became more rock-influenced.
246	* WeDidntStartTheBillyJoelParodies: "We Didn't Start the Fire" is probably the most parodied pop song of its era.
247	* WhatYouAreInTheDark: "The Stranger"
248	* WideEyedIdealist: The lyrics of "Pressure" are addressed to this kind of person.
249	--> ''I'm sure you have some cosmic rationale. But here you are with your faith and your Literature/PeterPan advice. You have no scars on your face and you cannot handle [[TitleDrop pressure]].''
250	* YouAreBetterThanYouThinkYouAre: "You're Only Human (Second Wind)" is possibly the musical TropeCodifier.
251	----
252
253	-> ''And these are the last words I have to say.\
254	It's always hard to say goodbye.\
255	But now it's time to put this book away.\
256	Ain't that the story of my life?''

Context Music / BillyJoel