Greatest Hits Vol. 3 - Joel, Billy (CD 1997)

I have to admit it...I almost didn't buy this album.

When Billy Joel's Greatest Hits: Volume III was released in 1997, I wasn't sure if I wanted to purchase it. I hadn't bought many of Joel's post-An Innocent Man albums (although a few good friends had given me The Bridge, Kohcept, and the Greatest Hits: Vols. I & II 1973-1985 as presents); I'd heard the quality of the songs had veered from great to good to mediocre, and because I was building up my classical music CD collection, I wasn't about to spend my limited music-buying bucks on albums that would disappoint me. So when I read a review in the Miami Herald that stated, in short, that Volume III wasn't exactly the most fitting "adieu" to pop/rock recording by "the Piano Man," I said to myself, "Nah, I better not waste my money on this CD; let's get Sir Neville Marriner and the Academy of Saint Martin-in-the-Fields' Amadeus soundtrack instead."

This I did, but about a year later, I broke down and purchased Volume III, the so-called "runt of the litter." I knew, just by looking at the play list, that I'd like the first five tracks; I had those songs in my cassettes of An Innocent Man and The Bridge, after all. It was the other 12 songs that were, at the time, musica incognita.

To my surprise, I was totally blown away by the songs that I almost missed out on because of that "professional" music critic's review. I found myself moved to the verge of tears by Joel's end-of-the-Cold War anthem "Leningrad," which tells the parallel life stories of Viktor, a Russian circus clown born in 1944 and Joel, born in suburbia five years later. With its opening piano chords reminiscent of a Russian military march and its haunting lyrics, "Leningrad" is a very personal statement about Joel's personal peace with a citizen of what was once the "evil empire." ("He made my daughter laugh/then we embraced; we never knew what friends we had/Till we came to Leningrad.")

Greatest Hits: Volume III -1997 begins where Volume II left off 12 years earlier, with two songs from 1983 s An Innocent Man.. The first track, "Keeping the Faith", is an autobiographical ode to the early rock music Billy listened to as a young man growing up in Long Island; the lyrics are both reflective as he looks back at his youth yet caution against romanticizing the past. It has a catchy backbeat and nifty old-school background vocals.

An Innocent Man has a pulsing bass undertone very similar to the classic doo-wop song Under The Boardwalk, the type of romantic vocal made famous by such groups as The Platters, The Regents, and The Diamonds. It deals with the difficulties faced when entering a relationship with someone who has been hurt in the past by former lovers. Some people stay far away from the door, Joel observes in his opening line if there s a chance of it opening up/They hear a voice in the hall outside/And hope that it just passes by. It s both a warning and a plea. It warns about the danger of willful self-isolation ( Some people live with the fear of a touch/in the anger of having been a fool ), while making a case for redemption ( But I ve been there and if I can survive/I can keep you alive/I m not above going through it again ).

From Joel s next album, The Bridge, there are A Matter of Trust, Baby Grand, and This Is The Time. The first is a rare guitar-based pure rocker that delves into relationship issues such as insecurity, unpredictability, optimism, and trust:

Some love is just a lie of the heart
The cold remains of what began with a passionate start
And they may not want it to end
But it will, it's just a question of when
I've lived long enough to have learned
The closer you get to the fire the more you get burned
But that won't happen to us
Because it's always been a matter of trust

Baby Grand is a wonderful, bluesy duet between Billy and the late, great Ray Charles. The song is perfect for the two artists since they are both piano men, albeit with very different styles.

Billy:
When it's dark and cold
I reach out
For someone to hold
When I'm blue
When I'm lonely
She comes through
She's the only one who can
My baby grand
Is all I need

Ray:
In my time
I've wandered everywhere
Around this world
She would always be there
Any day
Any hour
All it takes
Is the power in my hands
This baby grand's
Been good to me

Then there is the beautiful, memory evoking This Is The Time , with the artist reminiscing with his significant other as they walk along a beach that they had frequented in the past. Passionate and bittersweet at times, this song is mellow and energetic, featuring a mix of jazz and more pulsing rock beats. It also features wonderful lyrics about the uncertainties of life, the power of love, and the persistence of memory:

We walked on the beach beside that old hotel
They're tearin' it down now, but it's just as well
I haven't shown you everything a man can do
So stay with me, baby
I've got plans for you

This is the time to remember
'Cause it will not last forever
These are the days to hold on to
'Cause we won't, although we'll want to
This is the time,
But time is gonna change
You've given me the best of you
But now I need the rest of you

Did you know that before you came into my life
It was some kind of miracle that I survived
Some day we will both look back
And have to laugh
We lived through a lifetime
And the aftermath

Although there are many songs that I loved right from the get-go ("We Didn't Start the Fire," "The Downeaster Alexa," and the Gospel-tinged "The River of Dreams"), three are particular favorites of mine.

"And So It Goes" is a bittersweet song about a love affair that is star-crossed, doomed, and that Joel knows it is not going to last. It is, like some of his best melancholy songs, restrained and accompanied only by Joel's keyboards, and the lyrics ("So I would choose to be with you/that's if the choice were mine to make...") speak volumes to men and women who have gone through the heartbreak of loving someone yet knowing the relationship is going to end.

Joel's "Lullabye (Goodnight, My Angel)" started out as a purely classical piece in the style of Edvard Grieg, but acquired lyrics during the period when the songwriter/singer's marriage to Christie Brinkley was coming to an end during the creation of The River of Dreams album. It is a song similar to "And So It Goes" both in tone and performance, but the words are a promise to his daughter Alexa that "no matter where you go, no matter where you are" Joel will never be too far away. It is breathtakingly beautiful, and I sometimes wish Joel had included the solo piano version in his Fantasies and Delusions album of classical piano pieces.

Finally, there's Joel's inspired cover of Bob Dylan's "To Make You Feel My Love," in which the singer takes his voice and imitates Dylan's rough-edged tone to good effect. (One thing I had not known about Billy: he's a great mimic. In other albums, I've heard Joel sound like a Beatle in a cover of "A Hard Day's Night" or Dylan in "The Times They Are A' Changing.") I have often listened to this song thinking about loves of the past, thinking how I, too, would do all I could for their happiness and well-being. (I could make you happy, make your dreams come true/Nothing that I wouldn't do/ Go to the ends of the earth for you/To make you feel my love.)

Because Joel was on a reflective mood when he recorded his 1989 record Storm Front, several of the songs deal with history, most notably Leningrad, which tells of the parallel lives led by Billy and Viktor, one a Jewish kid from Levittown, N.Y. and the other the son of a Soviet soldier killed during World War II. It is a very haunting song, with its Russian-inspired piano segments and its evocative lyrics filled with historical references:

Viktor was born in the spring of '44
And never saw his father anymore
A child of sacrifice, a child of war
Another son who never had a father after Leningrad

Went off to school and learned to serve the state
Followed the rules and drank his vodka straight
The only way to live was drown the hate
A Russian life was very sad
And such was life in Leningrad

I was born in '49
A cold war kid in McCarthy time
Stop 'em all at the 38th Parallel
Blast those yellow reds to hell
And cold war kids were hard to kill
Under their desks in an air raid drill
Haven't they heard we won the war
What do they keep on fighting for?

We Didn t Start the Fire is, like A Matter of Trust, a guitar-driven song that unwittingly became very popular among history teachers since it basically covers events and individuals that shaped Billy s world from 1949 till 1989:

Harry Truman, Doris Day, Red China, Johnny Ray
South Pacific, Walter Winchell, Joe DiMaggio

Joe McCarthy, Richard Nixon, Studebaker, Television
North Korea, South Korea, Marilyn Monroe

Rosenbergs, H Bomb, Sugar Ray, Panmunjom
Brando, The King And I, and The Catcher In The Rye

Eisenhower, Vaccine, England's got a new queen
Maciano, Liberace, Santayana goodbye

We didn't start the fire
It was always burning
Since the world's been turning
We didn't start the fire
No we didn't light it
But we tried to fight it

The balance of the album includes songs from 1993 s River of Dreams plus several interesting covers; in addition to To Make You Feel My Love , Billy goes Country with Leonard Cohen s Light As The Breeze and that bluesy ode to lost love, Hey Girl.

Greatest Hits Volume III

1. Keeping The Faith
2. An Innocent Man
3. A Matter of Trust
4. Baby Grand
5. This Is The Time
6. Leningrad
7. We Didn't Start The Fire
8. I Go To Extremes
9. And So It Goes
10. The Downeaster 'Alexa'
11. Shameless
12. All About Soul
13.Lullabye (Goodnight, My Angel
14.The River Of Dreams
15.To Make You Feel My Love
16.Hey Girl
17.Light As The Breeze

My favorite song from this album:


And So It Goes
Storm Front Released: 1989
In every heart there is a room
A sanctuary safe and strong
To heal the wounds from lovers past
Until a new one comes along

I spoke to you in cautious tones
You answered me with no pretense
And still I feel I said too much
My silence is my self defense

And every time I've held a rose
It seems I only felt the thorns
And so it goes, and so it goes
And so will you soon I suppose

Music and lyrics (c)1989 Billy Joel