16. Billy Joel--52nd Street
#16: Billy Joel--52nd Street (1978)
Top-Notch Tracks: "Big Shot," [HJ200 #21], "Until the Night," [HJ200 #132]. "My Life," "Honesty," "Stiletto," "Half a Mile Away," "Zanzibar"
Album Depth: "52nd Street," "Rosalinda's Eyes"
Weak Links: So far away that they're probably in Connecticut.
Stand-Out Lyrics: "Well, it's no big sin to stick your two cents in, if you know when to leave it alone. But, you went over the line, you couldn't see it was time to go home."--"Big Shot"
"I'll have my fears like every man; you'll have your tears like every woman."--"Until the Night"
"Got a call from an old friend--we used to be real close. Said he couldn't go the American way. Closed the shop, sold the house, bought a ticket to the West coast. Now he gives them the stand-up routine in LA."--"My Life"
"I can always find someone to say they sympathize, if I wear my heart out on my sleeve. But, I don't want no pretty face to tell me pretty lies. All I want is someone to believe."--"Honesty"
"She's so fascinating that you're still there waiting when she comes back for the kill."--"Stiletto"
"Rose, he knows he's such a credit to the game, but the Yankees grab the headlines every time."--"Zanzibar"
"Talk about women and lie, lie, lie."--"Half a Mile Away"
"Crazy Latin dancing solo down in Herald Square. Oh, Havana I've been searching for you everywhere."--"Rosalinda's Eyes"
"They say it takes a lot to keep a love alive."--"52nd Street"
"They were all impressed with your Halston dress, and the people that you knew at Elaine's. And the story of your latest success kept them so entertained."--"Big Shot"
"I never ask you where you go, when I leave you in the morning. We go our different ways to separate situations."--"Until the Night"
"They will tell you you can't sleep alone in a strange place. Then they'll tell you you can't sleep with somebody else. Ah, but sooner or later you'll sleep in your own space. Either way it's okay, you wake up with yourself."--"My Life"
"Turn your transistor on and let the music play."--"Half a Mile Away"
"You had to have the front page, bold type. You had to be a big shot last night."--"Big Shot"
"Go ahead with your own life, leave me alone."--"My Life"
"When the sun goes down and the day is over--when the last of the light has gone. As they pour into the streets I will be getting closer--as the cars turn their headlights on."--"Until the Night"
"Well, you just don't remember everything you said, and you're not sure that you wanna know."--"Big Shot"
Album cover: 8 of 10. Gritty and grimy and pretty darn good. (I don't usually like gritty and grimy, but I'm okay with it here.)
[EDIT: After receiving a pointed rebuke from Nardo in the comment section of this post, I have decided to up this score to 9.5 out of 10 because of the look on Billy's face. I can't quite give it a 10, because he's holding a trumpet, not a piano, and he's known as the Piano Man, not the Trumpet Man.]
Comments: When this album came out in 1978, I wasn't a huge Billy Joel fan yet. I had recently bought "The Stranger" on 8-track (my first and only 8-track purchase.) I liked it, but I wasn't in awe of it at or Billy Joel at that point. And then I started hearing the songs from "52nd Street" on the radio. "My Life" was fun. "Big Shot" was a great rock song, and pretty darn edgy for a 12 year-old from Arimo. Those two songs, plus my favorable feelings for "The Stranger," led me to buy this album. (I think it was the first cassette I bought on my own.)
I immediately liked the album, but again it didn't yet turn me into a Billy Joel fanatic. (That would happen with his next album.) But, "52nd Street" had a nice blend of radio hits (the two songs mentioned above, plus "Honesty,") and really good album cuts. I was quickly drawn to the epic ballad "Until the Night." Even though I couldn't drive yet, the image of those cars turning their headlights on was very visceral. It reminded me of the sea of red tail lights heading south on I-15 past my Grandma's place. (There was a spot by Vonda's house where you could see the freeway and those tail lights moving towards Utah for miles.) I was also drawn to "Zanzibar," with its talk of Muhammad Ali and Pete Rose, even if I didn't fully appreciate the jazz trumpeting in the song at the time.
A few of the songs took me a bit longer to fully fall in love with. At age 12 I didn't think much of it, but by age 16 the line "talk about women and lie, lie, lie," from "Half a Mile Away" went from obscure song lyric to a way of life. And seeing Billy perform "Stiletto" live in the spring of 1984 transformed that song from a nice bit of album depth to a sax and piano fueled lesson in the pleasure of pain. (Even though it took me a few more decades before I got up the nerve to actually talk to girls.)
Over the course of this project, I've learned quite a lot from searching and reading on the interwebs. But, sometimes it's better to be ignorant. For most of my life, I've wondered what Billy mumbles at the beginning of the song "52nd Street." Over 40 years of thinking he might be saying "Italian sausage" were shattered recently by a quick interwebs search. Really, which is a more fun thing to say at the start of a song, "Italian sausage," or "And our hands are set?" (I think we both know the answer.) (And, I don't care what you say anymore, but I think I'll still sing the imagined sausage lyrics for the rest of my life.)
Up next: You'd curse like a sailor, too, if you lived under a cattle guard.
I don't want to start a fight with you over this, but you're wrong about the album cover being an 8 out of 10. It's a 10 out of 10 for two reasons. First, it features Billy giving us his best "Don't take any shit from anybody" look. Like Phil Collins, he's got his face on a LOT of his albums. But this is the very best facial expression out of all of them. This face says, "If you don't turn and leave right now, I will kick your ass." I believe this is the same facial expression I had on my face that night at a school dance when Doug Armstrong came up to the DJ table and said, "How about you play some decent music." I looked at him with this Billy Joel face and said, "How about you shut the hell up before I come across this table and kick your ass." He was shocked by what I said--as were the girls sitting nearby the table, as they had never heard me swear like that before--and he immediately turned and walked away to the other side of the lunchroom without saying a thing, because he knew that I meant every single word I had just said. Anyway, that's the expression on Billy's face on this album cover.
ReplyDeleteThe second reason this album cover is a 10 is that Billy is holding a TRUMPET! And if you're every going to get in a street fight with a musical instrument, the trumpet is the instrument of choice. It's small enough to swing fast, but its big enough to hurt when it lands on Doug Armstrong's stupid face.
Also, the trumpet solo on Zanzibar is what makes me love this album so very much. The song is over five minutes because of the long trumpet solo. But when Billy put out his My Lives collection of songs, he included a new version of Zanzibar that has another minute and a half of that trumpet solo! When I first heard the My Lives version of Zanzibar, I yelled out "Yes!" and nearly broke into tears when it didn't stop after just a few bars. It just kept playing on and on and on. I loved it so much! Don't get me wrong. The other songs on the album are excellent too, but that sweet extended trumpet solo puts it on a whole new level of awesomeness for me.
My next favorite song is "Stilleto" followed by "My Life," and "Big Shot." Then I love the others equally as much. And regarding the words at the beginning of "52nd Street," they are not now nor will they ever be "And our hands are set." There are only two acceptable options. The first is "Italian Sausage." I believe I read a question to Billy from a fan in one of the concert magazines where they ask him if he is saying "Italian Sausage" at the beginning of the song. His response, if I remember right, was "You may be right." The second option is what I always thought he said during the first five years of listening to the song--"And I am Tarzan."
And now you know...the rest of the story.
Nardo