What’s to like about some guy from Indiana? (Sorry, Jake!) Check out his induction speech for the Rock ‘n’ Roll Hall of Fame or his recent Fresh Air visit. Man, he’s cranky. And a bit more than bitter. And his songs, well, they’re silly (“I fight authority; authority always wins”?) and preachy and too Bob Seger-y. Hell, here he looks like the scary lovechild of Huey Lewis AND Lou Reed.
A song like “Jack and Diane” is just so fake – a 35 year old singing about being 17 – and yet it still feels right. Maybe because I’m over 35. And maybe because it seemed wrong when I was 17. But wrong in a good way. Dirty wrong.
I can still remember listening to that song and "Hurts So Good" on a car trip in ’82, blasting it on a tiny boombox, standing by a car in my short shorts and muscle tee and bowl haircut. I wish I had a picture of that time. Oh yeah, I do. Woah.
Best line of that induction speech, by the way? The Coog telling Billy Joel what the folks in Illinois thought of his Farm Aid performance: “Billy, they didn’t know you were Jewish. They just thought you were Italian.”
4 comments:
J-Coug rules. Those songs are great. He's got an awesome voice. There's nothing fake about them. They're songs! Are you going to argue that he was never 17? "Life goes on long after the thrill of living is gone" - pretty heartbreaking and dead on if you ask me. It's about getting old and how boring it is.
Oh, I agree. I loves the Coog. I was just playing the Devil's Avocado.
Getting old sucks. And he wrote that in his 30s!
wait, billy joel is not italian?
I know, crazy, huh? Same with Randy Newman, apparently.
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