I’ve talked many times about how my parents took me and my brothers and sister on car rides when we were kids around New England.  We would listen to different kinds of music on these rides on Saturday afternoons.  One of the artists I got to listen to and love was Billy Joel. His music hit me at a young age. It was like he was telling stories about real people. I could relate to the songs at that young age. This was back in the 70s and 80s when I was a kid. Ever since I’ve been a fan of this man’s music and listened to his songs to this very day. I love so many of his songs, and I know millions of others do so as well. His songs have touched a chord in so many around the globe. Billy Joel: And So It Goes is a film that documents everything in his life.

Billy started out as a young man in Hicksville, New York, a suburb on Long Island. He, like a lot of kids at that time, was in love with the Beatles. So he and his friends started a band. Eventually, he grew sick of his bandmates, who didn’t care enough about being musicians for a living. He joined another band as the keyboard/piano player. The Hassles, with his friend John Small, were more focused on their careers. The music came after that, but Attila, their band they formed later, didn’t quite work out for Billy. He did get something out of the friendship with Small, his girlfriend Elizabeth Weber. She became his wife and his manager, which is when his career took off. It was a beautiful relationship until drugs and alcohol got in the way, and it wasn’t anymore.

As I’ve gotten older, one specific song of his has meant more and more to me. That’s the “Piano Man”. I was an alcoholic for a good portion of my life before stopping about 11 or so years ago. When I was drinking, I’d play that song while sitting at the bar on the jukebox. It reminded me of myself sitting with a bunch of friends and sometimes strangers. For quite a while, it was like an anthem for me. It reminded me that I wasn’t alone. I had people I could commiserate with, like my friend Jimmy, the bartender, and many others. This song is one of the best I have ever heard, and I, like many others, would sing along with it. It was like a communal experience. Billy Joel’s music does that for people.

As a kid in the 80s, I started developing my taste in music, and one specific album I loved among many was “An Innocent Man”  songs like “Uptown Girl” “Tell Her About It” “The Longest Time” and “Keeping the Faith” were always on the television or radio. MTV made Joel even more famous than he already was. Add in his relationship with beautiful fashion model Christy Brinkley, and he was a world-wide sensation. They were in the newspapers all the time and even eventually new parents of a baby girl, Alexa Ray. They were living a great life. A life anyone would want. That’s what I wished I had. It took Joel a while to get to this point in his life, but it was worth the wait.

The documentary shows a lot of different sides of Joel. He was inspired by a lot of different kinds of music. His music never fit into the rock and roll genre. He did crooner songs, pop songs, ballads, and copied bands like Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons. He was like a sponge when it came to all the influences he was drawn to. He broke barriers by traveling to dangerous countries and even stood up for various different causes in his day. Like all big music stars, he had struggles, though. Whether it be with relationships or trust with his family members, even he was susceptible to bad financial issues and so forth. This is typical of the lives of musicians.

A fascinating part of the film was when he talked about his father. Where his family came from is interesting to me. As a Jewish man, it was surprising to hear his past relatives were from Germany and made the striped pajamas that the Jewish community was clothed in during WWII. The concentration camps were filled with Joel Makt clothing that his grandparents made at their textile mill company. It just shows that you don’t really know who somebody is. The past fans didn’t know about is what helped define him in later years. He took it as a badge of honor in a way. Later songs would come from this hidden past.

Arguably “We Didn’t Start The Fire” is a song that transcends time. That song educated kids and gave people an anthem they could sing along with for decades to come. I have probably sung many, many times myself.  The world is changing, but there is always something to say about the problems that are going on in the world. “I Go to Extremes” was about his own inner struggle with himself. His life was unraveling before his very eyes. He was a private man who didn’t want to talk about it. It’s hard to please everyone all the time. That’s where drugs and / or alcohol come in. It can be a savior or what one thinks it could be. In reality, it’s part of the problem. 

I love documentaries because they show a lot of things about the subject they are documenting. In the case of Billy Joel, the documentary shows a lot of talking heads from his past. His ex-wives, his bandmates, other great musicians like Bruce Springsteen, journalists, and other celebrities. Talking Heads are very prevalent in the film, but hearing a lot of the stories from the horses mouth, that being Billy Joel, was the best part of the horses mouth because you as a viewer believe him more when he tells these stories. It was good, though, that even people had falling outs with him and came on the documentary to discuss their side of their stories.

The other part of the documentary is all of the archival footage.  There is so much archival footage in this two part docu series. Going all the way back to the beginning, there are videos of him singing while being a child, but the footage deals with many live concert performances, practice sessions, interviews, videos, and everything in between. This documentary is an all-inclusive look at every aspect of this man from his childhood all the way to present. His experimentation with music and performance all are documented as well. There are a lot of different sides of this man. Like most geniuses. I was glad to see all of these different aspects of his life and career. This film Billy Joel: And So It Goes was a great look at this iconic musicians life.

4 ½

Dan Skip Allen