November 02, 2005
Billy Joel's Furniture Polish
I just got done reading an essay on Billy Joel in Chuck Klosterman's collection of essays "Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs." I feel a little bit late in bringing up this essay since I know that this book was in its peak of popularity about two years ago. However, I just read it for the first time. Klosterman's thoughts are interesting in that he has this uncanny ability to say things that I have thought about for years but have never been able to articulate. His essay on Joel is a perfect example.
I have been a Billy Joel fan practically my entire life. In every phase of my academic life (elementary school, middle school, high school, college) I have liked Billy Joel and have born a notable amount of criticism for my taste in his music. It all started with Piano lessons. I had to play Piano Man. I liked the song so I bought the tape. Then I bought another tape, and another, and another, until I had a stack of tapes that I always took with me on road trips.
Now I should point out that I havent listened to Billy Joel consistently my entire life. I usually go through periods of listening to him intently, which are inevitably followed by long gaps of time in which I cant really bear to listen to him at all. Every time I start to listen to him again after one of these gaps, my appreciation of his music changes. I still like his music, but for different reasons. Its safe to say that I have liked Billy Joel my entire life, but not always in the same way.
In elementary and middle school I really liked Billy Joel as "pop star." He had videos I liked on MTV like "We Didnt Start the Fire" and "River of Dreams" and the classics "Uptown Girl," "Keeping the Faith," and "For the Longest Time." I liked his image: the middle aged guy with Ray Charles glasses, an unfastened tie, and tennis shoes with his suit. For some reason I liked that image more than I ever liked the image of MTV superstars like Janet Jackson, Paula Abdul, or MC Hammer.
But during my early high school years, I grew weary of Billy and adapted slowly but surely to the cultural music of my times: Pearl Jam, Weezer, REM, the Smashing Pumpkins (to name a few).
But then I began to miss him. He hadnt made an original pop album since "River of Dreams" (he still hasnt to this day), and I began to grow nostalgic. This is when I became a major fan of Billy Joel as "nostalgic sentiment." I liked the "classic" Billy of the early and late seventies. I began to imagine myself as one who was not of my time. As Hanson, the Spice Girls, and the Backstreet Boys became the norm of my time, I turned to the decade of my birth for support. I looked to the seventies, and I didnt focus on the Led Zeppelin seventies or the James Taylor seventies. I looked to the Billy Joel seventies and I convinced myself that I was that guy.
But then Bible college happened, and fundamentalism and the Christian sub-culture devoured my life. I threw away my Billy Joel albums and built up my Steven Curtis Chapman collection. So Billy and I once again parted ways for a few years.
My third distinct Billy phase happened at Covenant College, after Reformed theology had revived my interest in secular music. I call this phase the Billy Joel as "legend" phase. During my college latter years, I focused my musical tastes a great deal on those I deemed to be musical "legends" like Paul Simon, Bob Dylan, and Bruce Springsteen. Billy Joel of course fell into this category as well. I made it a point to see all of these artists in concert so that I could partake of their "legendary" essence. It was during this period that I shelved out an all too ridiculous amount of money to see Billy Joel not once, but twice in concert with Elton John. The first experience resulted in a front row seat and a handshake after "Piano Man." This only furthered my awe of Billy, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame "legend" whom I believed had an incomparable catalog of hits.
But human idol worship can only take place so long before it fades away. And for the past couple years, Billy Joel has been off of my radar. Others have suffered too. I havent been able to stomach R.E.M. or Springsteen since the Bush/Kerry election. And Dylan, despite his genius and a great documentary from Scorcese on his life, has failed to interest me lately due to the obscurity of his lyrics. Paul Simon lost some splendor after I saw the reunion tour with Garfunkel. I cant explain it. He just lost some splendor.
About two years ago, I began to discover Townes Van Zandt. He became my new obsession last year. And my tastes have certainly evolved in his direction. I have definitely listened a lot more in recent times to guys like Van Zandt, Guy Clark, John Prine, Kris Kristofferson, and Loudon Wainwright III. Depressed guys, mostly from the seventies, with simple and honest lyrics and a little bit of twang. Thats kind of been my thing. Billy Joel just didnt seem depressed enough to warrant my playlist I guess.
My taste in music has taken a strong dichotic turn in recent years, meaning that I have succumbed to judging sacred music and secular music by different standards. If you are a Christian, writing decidedly sacred music, I hope that music to be uplifting and inspiring and Spirit-inducing. But if you are a non-Christian writing decidedly secular music (like Townes Van Zandt) I hope your music to be depressing and weary of life and the world. If I fail to hear that world-weariness and sickness honestly revealed in music, I tend to lose interest. With one exception. If you are like Johnny Cash, writing world-weary music from a Chrisitian perspective, you're OK with me. But those instances are rare indeed.
In the instance of Billy Joel, I lost interest in his music in recent years because I failed to sense that "world-weariness" that I am talking about. But Chuck Klosterman recently reminded me that Billy Joel indeed writes from such a perspective of world-weariness and that it is rooted in his disillusionment with image. Billy Joel was a depressed guy, and I think maybe he still is. He wrote from a great deal of depression, and it was just a few weeks prior to reading Klosterman's essay that I read a news story revealing that Billy Joel had tried to kill himself by drinking furniture polish in 1969. Thus, I have started listening to Billy Joel again. I think it is my Billy Joel as "depressed guy" phase. I have started listening to his classical album "Fantasies and Delusions" more than anything. That album reflects more than any other the "disillusioned" Billy. In some sense, I think you might call it Billy Joel's mucial furniture polish. I could be wrong, but this album sounds at times like Billy Joel killing himself.
I would like to discuss Billy's disillusionment with image in a separate post.