Speaker 1: This is Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the thing,
Speaker 1: My chance to talk with artists and writers, policymakers and performers,
Speaker 1: to hear their stories, what inspired their creations, what decisions
Speaker 1: changed their careers, and what relationships influenced their work. Billy
Speaker 1: Joel's fans have gotten to know him quite well over
Speaker 1: the past four decades. Don't go change to try and
Speaker 1: please me. You never led meet down before. From the
Speaker 1: open hearted declarations of old fashioned love and She's Got
Speaker 1: Away and just the way you are to the hard
Speaker 1: rocking social commentaries we didn't start the fire and Allentown
Speaker 1: how sad it's like me. You grew up listening to
Speaker 1: Billy Joel's music. You can chart phases of your life
Speaker 1: by each of his albums. Maybe that's because Billy Joel's
Speaker 1: songs are so passionately connected to who he was at
Speaker 1: the time he wrote them. Jack want you to get
Speaker 1: more level, Hello, Hello, Hello, And when you're actually sitting
Speaker 1: in the same room as him with a piano nearby, well,
Speaker 1: you can't help yourself. I want you to play me
Speaker 1: something if you don't mind, because your fans would demand that.
Speaker 1: I still remember you said that to me years ago,
Speaker 1: how predictable it was wherever you were that there was
Speaker 1: a piano. But it was like, Billy, could you do
Speaker 1: you mind? Right? We just a couple of songs. It's
Speaker 1: it's just birthday, it's Christmas, and we were wondering if
Speaker 1: you could play there. It is it's and it's just
Speaker 1: had it. We just just it's such fans. Yeah, you
Speaker 1: know mine, right, that's your life, yes, but it's it's
Speaker 1: you know, it's fun. You can't have act alongs. You're
Speaker 1: an act you can't act along, but you're gonna have
Speaker 1: sing alongs. I can always sit down at the party
Speaker 1: play and everybody starts singing. I go to a pub
Speaker 1: in England, I'm out, Benny Giby's having his zones there.
Speaker 1: You go there, it's uptown girl up and they all
Speaker 1: sit around he sing and everybody has a plass. It's fun.
Speaker 1: It creates a community instantly. Billy Joel is the third
Speaker 1: best selling solo artist of all time in the United States,
Speaker 1: where he sold more records than The Stones, Bruce Springsteen,
Speaker 1: and Madonna, but he admits there's still room for improvement.
Speaker 1: I know what good piano playing is and I'm not good.
Speaker 1: My left hand is lame. I'm a two finger left
Speaker 1: hand piano player, as opposed to post somebody who knows
Speaker 1: what they're doing with the left hand. I never practiced
Speaker 1: enough to use all my fingers on my left hand,
Speaker 1: so I just play octaves, bass notes. My right hand
Speaker 1: tries to compensate from my left hand being so gimpy,
Speaker 1: so I overplay my right hand. My technique is horrible.
Speaker 1: I can't read music. I never really don't read music.
Speaker 1: I used to, but I don't anymore. I forgot how
Speaker 1: so I took a piece of music that you didn't know.
Speaker 1: If I got a score, I wouldn't and I put
Speaker 1: in videos to play this. You would not it would
Speaker 1: be Chinese. It would be Chinese. Yet I don't know
Speaker 1: how did that happen. I started taking lessons when I
Speaker 1: was about four or five, and I went up till
Speaker 1: I was about sixteen, so it was almost twelve years
Speaker 1: of classical piano lessons. I loved it, but I just
Speaker 1: when you become a teenager, everything changes. I didn't want
Speaker 1: to read other people's dots anymore. And I also realized
Speaker 1: early on I'm not going to be a concert pianist.
Speaker 1: I don't have the rocketmaning off hands, the harrowits hands.
Speaker 1: I had strong hands, but the short fingers you were
Speaker 1: Johnny Friendly's hands. Who's Johnny Friendly from on the waterfront
Speaker 1: reunion boss doing the shape up down to the dock
Speaker 1: and and hopeboken. Yeah, yeah, you're not, You're not, you said,
Speaker 1: taking better accad of me, Charlie. He should have looked
Speaker 1: down for me just a little bit, a little bit.
Speaker 1: So what did I get one way to get? I'm
Speaker 1: a bum jolly, Let's face it, that's what I am.
Speaker 1: That's when I am. So you're a kid? Was there
Speaker 1: an intimation in your household? There was a pissical music right?
Speaker 1: My father was music. Yeah, he was a classically trained pianist.
Speaker 1: He grew up in Nuremberg, Germany. He also went to
Speaker 1: school in Switzerland. His father was quite well off. They
Speaker 1: had a mailo out, a textile business. Joel mocked fabric.
Speaker 1: So he had learned to play the piano. It was
Speaker 1: a very musical family. He could play Chopini, could play
Speaker 1: all the great stuff. He should have become a musician.
Speaker 1: He became an engineer, worked for Chee and then he
Speaker 1: was in promotion he was never really happy because he
Speaker 1: didn't become a musician. We had an old, upright piano
Speaker 1: in the house, a Leicester piano, real piece of junk,
Speaker 1: and ended up being a planter in the garden. My
Speaker 1: mom used it to grow a honeysuckle. She sang. Her
Speaker 1: family were all singing Gilbert and Sullivan, English music hall people.
Speaker 1: So I grew up in a very musical home. I
Speaker 1: heard musical all the time. My father was playing my
Speaker 1: that would saying radio is always on, listening to Milton
Speaker 1: Cross and the opera. On Sunday, Leonora enters learning a light.
Speaker 1: So I used to bang on the piano. My mom
Speaker 1: got sick of hearing me bang, and she dragged me
Speaker 1: down the street and I started taking lessons and I
Speaker 1: took to it. Now, where was the family when your
Speaker 1: father was there? And the piano? Where were you? Were
Speaker 1: you and the lester and your mother and your father?
Speaker 1: Where is this brother in Hicksville? My family moved with
Speaker 1: me out of the Bronx when I was a baby
Speaker 1: and maybe a year old. Basically grew up on the
Speaker 1: on the Island. I grew up on the island and
Speaker 1: the Levittown section of Hicksville, We had a levitt house,
Speaker 1: the cape cod on the quarter raker. Everybody's house looked
Speaker 1: the same. Started out looking the same. Now it doesn't
Speaker 1: look anything like Levittown, like my town. Yeah, sixteen years old, Hicksville,
Speaker 1: Long Island, Vietnam War going on, yes, very very tumultuous times,
Speaker 1: and all of a sudden, what do you decide you
Speaker 1: want to do well? I joined a band when I
Speaker 1: was fourteen. I was asked to be in a band,
Speaker 1: the Echos. This is the Echoes band. Well, guitars, because
Speaker 1: there really weren't no keyboards that you could amplify. I
Speaker 1: played the piano. I never played the organ. Finally figured
Speaker 1: out how to amplify keyboards. I think that Dave Clark
Speaker 1: five was the first band that had a an organ.
Speaker 1: You could hear vox organ. It was pieces, bits and
Speaker 1: pieces and I'm feeling good. It's the most unglad sounding song. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so you amplify the keyboard. We we got an organ
Speaker 1: and I and I was They decided I had the
Speaker 1: best voice in the band, which isn't really saying much
Speaker 1: because nobody could sing all that well in the band.
Speaker 1: We couldn't even harmonize. We're very bad singers, but they
Speaker 1: decided you really got the best voice, you'll sing the songs. Okay,
Speaker 1: how did you feel about that? I felt a little
Speaker 1: funny about it because I'm not a front man. Where
Speaker 1: you stand with Mick Jagger, I didn't have to Mick
Speaker 1: jaggon moves. I had a keyboard. You kind of locked in.
Speaker 1: You can't move around. You can't carry a keyboard around
Speaker 1: unless you were acordion player. And that looks like Lawrence
Speaker 1: Welcome Havan. Then the two. So I stood at the
Speaker 1: piano or I sat at the piano. And but then
Speaker 1: I realized, you know, that girl I always had a
Speaker 1: crush on, is actually looking at me. She never looked
Speaker 1: at me twice all those years in school. And uh,
Speaker 1: we're playing at the Holy Family Church, the church dance
Speaker 1: that was about fifteen. Virginia is looking at me, you know,
Speaker 1: come out Virginia at that Virginia and the band sounded great.
Speaker 1: I love what I was doing. The crowd went yea
Speaker 1: when we finished every song, and at the end of
Speaker 1: the night, the priest gave us each fifteen dollars, which
Speaker 1: in nineteen was that was it? The door locked behind me.
Speaker 1: This is what I'm gonna do. I don't want to
Speaker 1: go to Carner all anymore. I ended up on corn anyway.
Speaker 1: And what music were you performing covers of other people?
Speaker 1: Tuke Bux bands were playing early Beatles, Stones, Sam, the
Speaker 1: Sham and the Finger. At that time, when you're seeing
Speaker 1: Tommy James and the shan Del's and all that music,
Speaker 1: who were you saying to yourself, I want to have
Speaker 1: his career? Well, I like the had a different kind
Speaker 1: of music. I already came out of a classical background,
Speaker 1: and I really dug jazz when I was in my
Speaker 1: early teens. They brew back, Oscar Peterson, ar Taanum, Jimmy Smith,
Speaker 1: Bill Evans. I loved jazz, but I realized I ain't
Speaker 1: gonna be one of those guys either, because I wasn't
Speaker 1: a good enough pianist. I mean, these guys are as virtuostic,
Speaker 1: virtualistic whatever, juostic, virtuostic, as the classical as a religion.
Speaker 1: Yeah is it? Yeah? That's a really darm kidding. They're good.
Speaker 1: They're just really good. I mean, the top of the
Speaker 1: line guys, at the top of the line in classical
Speaker 1: and jazz. They could have gone either way. The top
Speaker 1: line classical guys, how they decided to be jazz guys
Speaker 1: could have been just as good as the top jazz guys,
Speaker 1: and vice versa. I was good enough to play rock
Speaker 1: and roll and pop. But when I really fell in
Speaker 1: love with as a teenager with girls and stuff was
Speaker 1: first out like soul music, James Brown, Wilson, Pickett, Otis Redding,
Speaker 1: the Temptations, Marvin Marvin Gay, Smokey Robinson, Gladys No. I
Speaker 1: mean I just loved well, I tried to, you know, well,
Speaker 1: it was you know, they were they were all white people,
Speaker 1: and there weren't Long Island. There wasn't anybody but white
Speaker 1: people in my school. I think there were a couple
Speaker 1: of Jews, some Latinos. That was sprinklings. But everybody's white.
Speaker 1: But everybody likes the music a twist and shout or
Speaker 1: everybody would do come on now, shout, come on and
Speaker 1: Louis Louis, I think that was the kingsman. What I say,
Speaker 1: Ray Charles, So you're a girl all dressed in green,
Speaker 1: and you'd make up really dirty words to that. We
Speaker 1: came up with some really good stuff. So I love
Speaker 1: that stuff. And then the Beatles came around and there
Speaker 1: was Boom four. Working class guys from Liverpool, which is
Speaker 1: as close to Levittown in England, I think and sounding anyway, Okay,
Speaker 1: if what guys from Liverpool, Yeah, Liverpool, it's possible. It's possible.
Speaker 1: They don't look like Frankie am Along, they don't look
Speaker 1: like Bobby Rydell. They look like four working class guys
Speaker 1: from anywhere. They could be from Micksville, from love It Town.
Speaker 1: So I said, that's that's possible. That's what I want
Speaker 1: to do. I want to write my own songs. I
Speaker 1: want to play in my own band, do our own
Speaker 1: arrangements and make our own way. When did that start?
Speaker 1: This is before the Echoes, before before I joined the band,
Speaker 1: the Beatles came out. You were a kid. I was
Speaker 1: a kid. I was thirteen. You started writing music. Yes,
Speaker 1: I started writing air Zots Beatles songs. But I climbed
Speaker 1: the highest mountain. Ye hold your perse like that. I
Speaker 1: want to hold your purse. Trying to sound live Napoleon Puglian. Puglian, Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, she don't love me like before my own
Speaker 1: song she don't love me any more. I believed all
Speaker 1: the l she told me. Uh uh, you know that
Speaker 1: kind of thing. Trying to sound like the early Beatles.
Speaker 1: It was fun. It was a lot of fun. I
Speaker 1: was asked to join the band after the Beatles came out.
Speaker 1: And now you gotta remember. November of sixty three, John F.
Speaker 1: Kennedy is assassinated. The country goes into the dumps. Even
Speaker 1: though we didn't know that much about politics government. He
Speaker 1: was our guy. He was the young, vigorous progressive and
Speaker 1: he was bump. He was shot taken away. Everybody just
Speaker 1: turned off, like a switch turned off. We became very cynical,
Speaker 1: the whole nation and the blues. February of sixty four,
Speaker 1: who comes out? The Beatles come to America. We took
Speaker 1: them in. We just embraced that. They walked into that
Speaker 1: spaceful funny, it was. They were warm everything, everything that's
Speaker 1: taken away from us. Great, let's go have a party.
Speaker 1: Let's party. So you start writing songs and you're saying
Speaker 1: air sets Beatles songs. What's the first song you write
Speaker 1: that you can remember? Was called My Journey's End. I
Speaker 1: could play it in film me too. Let's hear it
Speaker 1: whill I climb the highest mountain and I swim the
Speaker 1: deep scene. If I knew you were there at my
Speaker 1: journeys and waiting for me. Let me tell now much
Speaker 1: that you love me, sign the letters that you say
Speaker 1: Jesus anywhere, And you were waiting there at my journeys.
Speaker 1: And so what's the first song you wrote? So what's
Speaker 1: the first song? Which was one that you wrote? Well,
Speaker 1: it was probably in the Hassles, the Hassle sould records
Speaker 1: a few on Long Island problems, maybe Jersey exactly on
Speaker 1: the turn policies at the Woodrow Wilson rest stop. Yes,
Speaker 1: I think it was the coffee chock full nuts in
Speaker 1: Paramus because we opened it. We kind of has played
Speaker 1: at the opening. Um the first thing I we sold anything.
Speaker 1: So I was signed originally with the Echoes to Mercury Records,
Speaker 1: and we changed the name to the Lost Souls. Were
Speaker 1: the Lost Souls for a while, we made a couple
Speaker 1: of records, nothing ever happened. H was the other one,
Speaker 1: she don't love me before, she don't love me anymore.
Speaker 1: I believe all the last she told me, don't you
Speaker 1: know it's true that she stole me away from my
Speaker 1: true love and now my Lula doesn't love me any
Speaker 1: email most like Mr Um And then we became the
Speaker 1: Lost Souls, and it turns out there was an English
Speaker 1: band called the Lost Souls, so we had to change
Speaker 1: our name. So the president of Mercury Records, brilliant guy
Speaker 1: at the time, said Okay, we're gonna give you a
Speaker 1: new name, the Commandos Vietnams. At the put time, you're
Speaker 1: gonna be the Commandos. We hate that name, nobody likes
Speaker 1: or yeah, we likes that stuff. You know, you're gonna
Speaker 1: be the Commander's gonna be great, and we're gonna get
Speaker 1: your outfits. And so that lasted about fifteen minutes and
Speaker 1: we got dumped off the label. So it's Echoes, Echoes,
Speaker 1: Lost Souls, Souls and then Commandos for a weekend. For
Speaker 1: a weekend, opened up one quick choc full of nuts.
Speaker 1: And then I there was a band on Long Island
Speaker 1: which was making a lot of local noise called the Hassles.
Speaker 1: They asked me to join. The guys in my band
Speaker 1: and the Echoes, Lost Souls Commandos. They were all going
Speaker 1: on to either the military or college. None of them
Speaker 1: were really seriously going to be musicians except the bass player,
Speaker 1: and I I said I'll join all right, I'll join
Speaker 1: the Hassles. They wanted me to play organ. I'll join
Speaker 1: if I can bring my bass player with me, because
Speaker 1: they didn't have a bass player, and they said okay.
Speaker 1: So that became the Hassles. And then there was another guy.
Speaker 1: He got with a lot of Mick Jagger moves, Little John.
Speaker 1: His name was great Hair, good looking guy, couldn't sing
Speaker 1: to save it didn't matter. He was gorgeous and women
Speaker 1: just went nuts and I'm I'm in the back doing death. Well,
Speaker 1: but they had eyes, you know, they could see, they
Speaker 1: could see the music video killed the radio absolutely glad
Speaker 1: I came up in an air where it wasn't that prep.
Speaker 1: So then I was in the Hassles. Now the Hassles
Speaker 1: were a band, blue white soul band. There were a
Speaker 1: bunch of them. The Vagrants was another one. Uh. They
Speaker 1: used to play at the Action House all the time
Speaker 1: on Long Island. We made two albums with the United
Speaker 1: Artists and they both bombed out. That that's the first
Speaker 1: time we started selling anything. Every step I take, but
Speaker 1: the first song that I wrote that actually sold something.
Speaker 1: Everything I do, I don't know. The course went every step,
Speaker 1: every move I make. You know I'm trying to do
Speaker 1: enough without you. I turned eye run eye hide really bitlers,
Speaker 1: but I know deep inside a part of me has died. Yeah,
Speaker 1: like Popeye, He's gonna I didn't know you wrote that.
Speaker 1: That's great. That's how my father used to start. It
Speaker 1: sounded like Popeye. Yeah. So that was probably the first
Speaker 1: thing that saw I was in the first Hassle's album.
Speaker 1: I think we saw a dozen copies. But our big
Speaker 1: single was actually a cover of a Salmon Dave record,
Speaker 1: You got Me humming, Uh, I don't know what you got,
Speaker 1: but it's dead man, you got me and you got
Speaker 1: Me on and it's a big song by Sam and Dave.
Speaker 1: Everybody was covering soul records and doing them psychedelic or
Speaker 1: doing their own arrangements of them. That was the Hassle's hit.
Speaker 1: First album was horrible, the second hal was really horrible.
Speaker 1: And then I, me and the drummers split off from
Speaker 1: the Hassles to form a power duo. We were gonna
Speaker 1: destroy the world with amplification. It's just like the heavy
Speaker 1: metal thing we heard Zeppelin. It blew our minds, Iron Butterfly,
Speaker 1: I gotta divid, don't you know that? I Love you?
Speaker 1: Went on and on and on. So when you get
Speaker 1: to this point where you say, a couple of albums,
Speaker 1: the hassles, and then when is it you? Well, like
Speaker 1: the band's got someone was smaller and smaller until I
Speaker 1: became a two man. And so when you and he
Speaker 1: went off, until it was the two of you, until
Speaker 1: it was just the two What did he play? He
Speaker 1: played drums? I played Hammond Oregan wired directly through hand.
Speaker 1: So we're getting closer to Lawrence welk. Now the more
Speaker 1: we go, it's getting closer. You almost got the according
Speaker 1: but it was louder. It was much louder. And we
Speaker 1: got signed to Epic, and we were on Epic from
Speaker 1: one album and it was a colossal failure. We played
Speaker 1: one gig I think it was an Unas on the
Speaker 1: West Side in Manhattan, and people went fleeing from the place.
Speaker 1: We were so loud he could see blood coming out
Speaker 1: of ears. Horrible. Thank god it didn't happen, because I
Speaker 1: would have screamed myself out of the right, out of
Speaker 1: the business. So after you nearly kill a room full
Speaker 1: of people at onn what happened then that we broke
Speaker 1: up and I decided I don't longer want to be
Speaker 1: a rock and roll star. I got that out of
Speaker 1: got that out of my system. I was about nineteen
Speaker 1: or twenty. I want to write songs now coming up.
Speaker 1: How this kid from Long Island adjusted to life in
Speaker 1: Los Angeles, chicks coming and stuff from the beach, rubbing
Speaker 1: your neck and shoulders while you're playing. Yeah, that's what
Speaker 1: it looks like in the movies. And why even so
Speaker 1: he was able to say goodbye to Hollywood. This is
Speaker 1: Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the thing. This
Speaker 1: is Alec Baldwin, and you're listening to Here's the thing.
Speaker 1: Billy Joel never set out to be a rock star.
Speaker 1: He just wanted to write songs like this one. Baby,
Speaker 1: all the lights are turned on you. Now you're in
Speaker 1: the center of the stage. And sometimes he heard his
Speaker 1: songs in a voice other than his own. Baby on
Speaker 1: a lance attend on you. You're in the center of
Speaker 1: the stage. Everything revolves on what you do. You're in
Speaker 1: your prim coming. Did you send him that song to record?
Speaker 1: I wanted him too, But Bob writes his own stuff.
Speaker 1: He's not gonn do covers. He doesn't buy songs from
Speaker 1: the people. No, he does not. But I no longer
Speaker 1: wanted to be the guy on stage. I wanted to
Speaker 1: be the guy behind the scenes. This just happened to
Speaker 1: coincide with the era of the singers songwriter Harry Chape
Speaker 1: and Jim Croce. James Taylor was huge at the time.
Speaker 1: So the advice I got was, what do you want
Speaker 1: people to hear these songs? Why don't you make your
Speaker 1: own album? Okay, I got a record deal, Family Records,
Speaker 1: This guy named already RiPP, perfect name, like I was
Speaker 1: like Pinocchio. Yeah. I fell in with the you know,
Speaker 1: Hydride Lidy an actor's life for me, for those people.
Speaker 1: And I recorded an album in l A. I lived
Speaker 1: in l A for a little while. They said, okay,
Speaker 1: then you made the album. Now now you got an album,
Speaker 1: you need to promote it. You need to go on
Speaker 1: the road and play and promote the albums. Oh okay.
Speaker 1: It's a kind of a strange way to be a songwriter.
Speaker 1: But that's what other people were doing. You know, other
Speaker 1: people be interested in my material. If I promoted it,
Speaker 1: promote the album, you'll hear it. Well, the album was
Speaker 1: mastered at the wrong speed. So a song like this,
Speaker 1: She's got away about her, I don't know what it is,
Speaker 1: but I know that I can't live without played like this,
Speaker 1: She's got away. I don't know what it is, but
Speaker 1: I know that I can't live without it. So if
Speaker 1: you hear that recording, I sound like the Chipmunks, well
Speaker 1: speed it up kind of. It's terrible. The album never
Speaker 1: went anywhere. Nothing happened, and I went on the road.
Speaker 1: I promoted it and never saw it in the stores.
Speaker 1: But that was when I was me. That was just
Speaker 1: Billy Joel. So when you when people buy that album,
Speaker 1: there's album has been rereleased where it's not at that speed.
Speaker 1: It's been remastered, but it's still there's something wrong with it.
Speaker 1: It just doesn't sound. I would advise people don't buy it.
Speaker 1: If you can steal it, steal it. So Cold Spring
Speaker 1: Harper is the first album. It's you how many band
Speaker 1: members guitar, bassed, drums, and there was some violins that
Speaker 1: were put in by Auady ripping. You know, he was
Speaker 1: trying to be Phil Specter. It got all glopped up.
Speaker 1: It was supposed to be more of a folky recorded
Speaker 1: that in l A, recorded it in l A. How
Speaker 1: long were you in l A? Three years? What was
Speaker 1: that like for you? Weird? Yeah? How I went there
Speaker 1: and I stayed on Santa Marca Boulevard. It's just dumpy.
Speaker 1: A little place called the Tropicana Motel right there on
Speaker 1: Santi the Duke's with the Duke's Duke's coffee shop. Maybe
Speaker 1: the huge sandwiches for the poor. You have breakfast the Duke's.
Speaker 1: It was great. You know a buck you could eat
Speaker 1: like a king. The place was a dump, but the
Speaker 1: postcards said the Tropic Canna and it had like a
Speaker 1: palm tree on it. So I said postcards, all my friends,
Speaker 1: I've made it here. I'm in Hollywood, coming together. Cat.
Speaker 1: I'm having on what's on Santa Monica Boulevard for a dollar,
Speaker 1: I mean to play in my song with a Chipmunk speed. Well,
Speaker 1: if it's all going great, Yeah, if you're from Long Island,
Speaker 1: you get a postcard pumped you the Tropic can It's
Speaker 1: oh my god, he's made it because you and I
Speaker 1: are from the same background. Yes, I mean from SAA.
Speaker 1: Your friends you grew up with a propate like mine
Speaker 1: where they probably get that post like like Joey, come here.
Speaker 1: I got a postcard from Billy. He's the Tropicana here. Wow,
Speaker 1: he's on the beach with girls like the beach boys.
Speaker 1: He's driving cars. But I would make movies that coul
Speaker 1: my friends be like, they say, let me ask you
Speaker 1: a question. You do a love scene with it brought
Speaker 1: the movie, Like do you ever get excited like yourself?
Speaker 1: You know what I mean? There's always a weird you know,
Speaker 1: to make love to a woman in front of olden people?
Speaker 1: Can you pick who you make out with? Yeah? Like
Speaker 1: do you enjoy that? It was it fun? You mean
Speaker 1: he groupies out there and I'm like, you know, it's
Speaker 1: not funn because it's a hundred and people staring at
Speaker 1: you while you're doing it, Like, oh yeah, I forgot
Speaker 1: about that. I forgot. We got those questions. What's it
Speaker 1: like in a student? I mean like a lot of
Speaker 1: drugs and girls and stuff. No, you're actually in a factory.
Speaker 1: He's surrounded by equipment, and you know you don't have
Speaker 1: like big fish thanks full of cocaine and everything, like
Speaker 1: chicks coming and stuff from the beach rubbing your neck
Speaker 1: and shoulders while you're playing. Yeah, that's what it looks
Speaker 1: like in the movies. Did you movie stars some of
Speaker 1: a musician? I'm every night you haven't been with who?
Speaker 1: All the big stars? Right? And a fish tankful of
Speaker 1: blow when chicks and bikinis rubbing the shoulders right, And
Speaker 1: that's what people think now when you did you did
Speaker 1: Cold Spring Harbor? There, did you do the next album
Speaker 1: out there? Actually I got a job after I did
Speaker 1: the Cold Spring Harbor album. I dropped that aside. I
Speaker 1: had to get out of this horrible deal and I signed.
Speaker 1: I signed away everything, copyrights, publishing, record royalties, everything, my
Speaker 1: first child. I gave away at all. And I said
Speaker 1: that I gotta get out of this deal. And I
Speaker 1: hid in l A and I worked in a piano
Speaker 1: bar under the name Bill Morton. It's just down in
Speaker 1: the Wilshire district. And it was no, it's not a
Speaker 1: real bar town l A. Uh. You know, Long Island
Speaker 1: is a pub on every corner. It's a pub culture.
Speaker 1: So when people close their eyes and they think of piano, man,
Speaker 1: I think of a guy bending over a piano, and
Speaker 1: I think of a guy in a in a place
Speaker 1: on Long Island or in New York. But you recorded
Speaker 1: that out of Los Angeles. I recorded in l A.
Speaker 1: And that's where I worked. Some people think I did
Speaker 1: it for years. I worked in this piano for six months.
Speaker 1: I needed to make some money. I made Union scale,
Speaker 1: I get tips. Mostly played, you know, Major seventh Chords
Speaker 1: anything but but but how does piano man start that
Speaker 1: kind of thing? And that guy in the hotel a
Speaker 1: lot love. They would request songs I didn't even know
Speaker 1: the song. Can you play what's that? Jogi carn Michael's
Speaker 1: song startus? And I would go, sure you play mr.
Speaker 1: And everybody was drinking pretty heavy because in an l
Speaker 1: A bar, these were all people who lost it the
Speaker 1: track losers. I just like drinking like fish and I
Speaker 1: got free drinks. Oh my god. But so then you
Speaker 1: do piano man, what's the next album after that? You do?
Speaker 1: In l A? Uh? We did Piano Man in l A.
Speaker 1: And there was an album that wasn't a hit album.
Speaker 1: People perceived that to be a hit. It was not
Speaker 1: a hit piano man. But this is back in the
Speaker 1: early seventies. In those days they still had FM, progressive radio.
Speaker 1: Dis jockeys could spend whatever they want. W L A R.
Speaker 1: Dennis McNamara him, I was a kid home. I was smoking,
Speaker 1: you know what, leaning out the windows. So my mom
Speaker 1: didn't know. And on the video we'd hear w L
Speaker 1: I R this Dennis McNamara, Jackson Brown right, I listened
Speaker 1: to this guy. He was my childhood Dennis McNamara. We
Speaker 1: grew up with these disc jockeys at night Allison Steven
Speaker 1: Allison the night Bird and Roscoe Zaccharly was Vin Skels,
Speaker 1: and my favorite guy was Scott Muni coming at you,
Speaker 1: Scott Muny, a little spooky tooth from from England. Spooky
Speaker 1: tooth Scot Munick and at you right now. They played
Speaker 1: whatever they wanted. They didn't have program directors, they didn't
Speaker 1: have consultants, and people would call in. If they got
Speaker 1: enough requests, they would play a track. So piano Man
Speaker 1: got requested all the time. It was a five five
Speaker 1: and a half minute record. I mean, he's not an
Speaker 1: am hit an amount of time. It's too long, and
Speaker 1: it was in three quarter time pop pop and it's
Speaker 1: and it's not really lyrics. Dellimerates. John at the Bar
Speaker 1: is a friend of mine. He gets my drinks for free.
Speaker 1: He's quick with the joke of a lot. Have you
Speaker 1: smoke with it? Some said he rather big, could be
Speaker 1: one of the girl from Nantucket the Puppa. So it's
Speaker 1: still limericks. And if anybody said this is gonna be
Speaker 1: a hit record. I tell him, right of their mind.
Speaker 1: The next album comes out, Street Life Serenade. It's the
Speaker 1: sophomore jinks. I did not have enough time to write
Speaker 1: new material after the Piano Man album came out. Piano
Speaker 1: Man got made a lot of noise, got a lot
Speaker 1: of attention paid to it. Record company wanted another follow
Speaker 1: up right away. Okay, new album now, but on the road.
Speaker 1: I haven't a chance to write now, needing now. I
Speaker 1: didn't have any material and you can hear it. So
Speaker 1: what do you do? What do you do when you
Speaker 1: got nothing? What do you play? I had nothing. I
Speaker 1: was empty. I was running on empty. But there's not
Speaker 1: nothing on the album. Where did that come from? Well?
Speaker 1: I had one song that I thought, which was the Entertainer.
Speaker 1: Which is that? Uh? Another folks song? I am the
Speaker 1: entertain them, I know, just swear eyes done, not surenator.
Speaker 1: I don't know a long haired band today. I am
Speaker 1: your champion. I may won your hearts, but I know
Speaker 1: in the game you're forgetting my name. I won't be
Speaker 1: here and another year if I don't stay on the chart.
Speaker 1: I wrote it on a guitar, actually, but that was it.
Speaker 1: That was probably the one song that I had finished
Speaker 1: and the boom in the studio. The clock is ticking.
Speaker 1: So there's two instrumentals on that album, the root beer Rag,
Speaker 1: which is just the piano ragtime thing, and this uh
Speaker 1: Air's's Western movie theme called the Mexican Connection. Because I
Speaker 1: was living in l A. Was fascinated with westerns, bum
Speaker 1: bum bums. What are the songs came off a street
Speaker 1: Life that were nothing that We're memorable? Nothing, The egg
Speaker 1: that We're pretty is the only one. Uh There was
Speaker 1: a song about a hooker I was in love with.
Speaker 1: I wanted her to leave her profession and be with me,
Speaker 1: but she made too much money and I couldn't afford her.
Speaker 1: It was called Roberta. What else was on that album? Souvenirs?
Speaker 1: Next song a picture postcon a folded stub, a program,
Speaker 1: the play full away the photograph ups of your and
Speaker 1: your moment? Doesn't it only like another fifteen seconds of it?
Speaker 1: That was a nice song, but it was like this
Speaker 1: short and other than that is the Mexican Connection, rut
Speaker 1: beer Rag. It was okay, and you finished street life
Speaker 1: and you're in l A. And then what do you do?
Speaker 1: I finished street Life and it comes out and it goes,
Speaker 1: you know, Pump dives right off the charts. The album
Speaker 1: after that was Turnstiles. I moved back to New York.
Speaker 1: I said, I'm going back to New York. Mid seventies,
Speaker 1: New York was in the dumps. They were gonna default
Speaker 1: forward to New York dropped dead for to New York dropped.
Speaker 1: I saw that headline and people in l A Were like,
Speaker 1: ha ha, screw New York. We can't wait to New
Speaker 1: York goes down to dumps. And I said, that was
Speaker 1: down with that. If you're act going down the tubes,
Speaker 1: I'm going back. I want to be there for this,
Speaker 1: and I'm picturing this apocalypse. I actually wrote a song
Speaker 1: called Miami seventeen, think about the year twenty seventeen. I'm
Speaker 1: an old man. I'm telling my grandchildren I was there.
Speaker 1: I saw the lights go out on Broadway. Seeing the
Speaker 1: lights go out on Broadway, I saw the Empire state
Speaker 1: later life went on beyond the Palaceades. We all bought
Speaker 1: cadillacs and left there long ago. And I'm picturing I'm
Speaker 1: I'm an old man in the year seventeen. I'm living
Speaker 1: in Miami, which I'm closing in I'm kind of fulfilling
Speaker 1: my own prophecy here so and the other song, which is,
Speaker 1: some folks like to get away, take a holiday from
Speaker 1: the neighborhood, have a flight to Miami Beach on the Hollywooo.
Speaker 1: I'm taking a gray Hound on the Hudson River line.
Speaker 1: I'm in the New York state of mind. We could
Speaker 1: do it like this, some oaks like get away, Tony,
Speaker 1: come on, Chicken, a holiday from the neighborhood, a flight
Speaker 1: to flight to Miami Beach, all the Hollywood. Yeah, I'm
Speaker 1: taking the ghown huts and yeah, I'm in New York. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And he'd recorded it, and that was I was hoping
Speaker 1: other people would do that song. But I was back
Speaker 1: in New York. I was home. Are you glad you were?
Speaker 1: I was thrown so leaving l A, which just was
Speaker 1: meant to be home. Say goodbye to Hollywood, right exactly,
Speaker 1: you know, say goodbye to Hollywood. Thanks, it's been great,
Speaker 1: but goodbye. After three years, it went sour on me.
Speaker 1: And when I first moved out to the weather is
Speaker 1: great and all the chicks and the palm trees. After
Speaker 1: three years, everybody's full crap. Here, I'm a producer Prince
Speaker 1: loved what you know. We all produced gas. We produced something.
Speaker 1: When when you go back to New York, the where
Speaker 1: do you go the city? I moved to Highland Falls,
Speaker 1: which is right up to Hudson. Why we weren't ready
Speaker 1: to move Lockstock and Barrow was waiting the city. I
Speaker 1: was married at the time. My first X one where
Speaker 1: is she from? From sayaset? So she went out there
Speaker 1: with you and came back. She went out there with
Speaker 1: me and came back with me. And this was Turnstiles
Speaker 1: was recorded in New York. I produced it myself. Are
Speaker 1: you glad you did? I'm I was glad I did
Speaker 1: at the time because I needed to use my own musicians.
Speaker 1: I didn't want to use session man. I didn't want
Speaker 1: to use studio players. I want on my road band.
Speaker 1: It was a long island band and we were doing
Speaker 1: great on the road. We weren't selling any records, but
Speaker 1: the crowds were going crazy. We were blowing headliners off
Speaker 1: the stage and Dooby Brothers everywhere we played the Beach Boys.
Speaker 1: We would get better plus than the This is when
Speaker 1: Turnstiles came out. Yes, but turns out no, Trench Styles
Speaker 1: didn't sell anything. You gotta be kidding, No, no, no,
Speaker 1: hits New York. State of Mind is now perceived to
Speaker 1: be a hit, But wasn't it say about Hollywood wasn't
Speaker 1: a hit? None of the Ruggets. But I love all
Speaker 1: those songs, not until the Stranger, which was the next album,
Speaker 1: and seventies and Off that Comes, how many HiT's four
Speaker 1: which were just the Way you Are moving out only
Speaker 1: the good Day Young and She's Always a Woman, so
Speaker 1: she's always a woman, and just the way you Are
Speaker 1: our love songs. Well, She's always a woman is a
Speaker 1: love so not perceived. Remember I'm just saying, but they're
Speaker 1: very romantic songs. Well, i'd had romantic ballads before that,
Speaker 1: from the Cold Spring Harbor, She's Got Away, Piano man
Speaker 1: if I only had the words to tell you You're
Speaker 1: my home and then turnstyles Summer Highland Falls, no thematic depression,
Speaker 1: but about a relationship. But I was writing ballads I've
Speaker 1: loved these Days about a man and a woman, and
Speaker 1: then the Stranger just the Way you Are, which is
Speaker 1: just a pure, out and out love song, She's Always
Speaker 1: a Woman, which is kind of a double edged sword there.
Speaker 1: I had no idea it was such a big record
Speaker 1: just the way you are became this mon stir like
Speaker 1: the Beatles. Yeah, once after the Stranger. After the Stranger,
Speaker 1: we started playing colosseums and arena's, the big, big rooms,
Speaker 1: and I went right back on the road again and
Speaker 1: I started writing again. Um, you start writing for bigger rooms. Yes, yeah,
Speaker 1: I had to be. I was aware. Now we're playing
Speaker 1: the big places and we got to write bigger songs.
Speaker 1: I gotta have bigger numbers energy. You can't play to
Speaker 1: a colosseum with a handful of ballots. You gotta knock
Speaker 1: them out. It got bigger, It got rounder, fatter, fuller, fuller, faster,
Speaker 1: you know, more high energy stuff, harder, faster, deeper, as
Speaker 1: they say in the adult film in His Dream. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that was it. Pretty much went into the triple X.
Speaker 1: You started going triple x. More Billy Joe raw, but uncensored.
Speaker 1: After the break, you're listening to Here's the Thing, and
Speaker 1: you can hear more conversations, sing a song with me,
Speaker 1: Chris and Okay, more singing with other artists, policymakers and performers.
Speaker 1: I bet your bottom dollar that tomorrow, fun take a
Speaker 1: listen to earlier episodes at Here's the thing dot Org. Okay,
Speaker 1: that's enough. I'm Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's
Speaker 1: the Thing Billy. Joel recorded five albums with a band
Speaker 1: that consisted of the same four guys, Liberty de Vito, Russell, Javor's,
Speaker 1: Doug steg Meyer and Richie Kannada. Kannada left the band
Speaker 1: in eight one. At that point, Joel was also ready
Speaker 1: to try something new. I wanted to write my masterpiece,
Speaker 1: my Sergeant Pepper as it were. Instead of writing from
Speaker 1: the from the inside out, like having starting with the
Speaker 1: seed of a song, we started with sound ideas and
Speaker 1: thoughts and studio techniques and we didn't really know what
Speaker 1: we had until almost the final mix. What is this thing?
Speaker 1: We're experimenting with stuff? And it was? It took a year.
Speaker 1: Were you still producing? No? No, he was producing sil
Speaker 1: Vermon who started a stranger NW. When when you have
Speaker 1: someone like Ramon, what did he do for you? How
Speaker 1: did he help you? Well? Phil Ramon he was a
Speaker 1: child prodigy on the violin. He was from South Africa.
Speaker 1: Actually he knew music and now he had years and
Speaker 1: years in the trenches as an engineer. He he recorded
Speaker 1: JFK speeches when you see the Marilyn Monroe thing, A
Speaker 1: mount of the Square God, Happy birthday, Mr. President. That's
Speaker 1: Phil Ramon. He was the engineer on those things. I
Speaker 1: mean he's when when with some amazing recordings, but never
Speaker 1: got credited as a producer. So I who's this guy?
Speaker 1: Phil Remona keep Simon Ramone. Paul Simon used him as
Speaker 1: an engineer, and I said, I want to use I
Speaker 1: want to work with this guy because he looks like
Speaker 1: he knows what he do. He knows how to get
Speaker 1: good sound, he knows how to deal with sonic things sonic.
Speaker 1: And when he came in Boom, we knew we had
Speaker 1: a professional. Guy. Was like working with another great musician.
Speaker 1: He knows how to play the studio like we know
Speaker 1: how to play our instruments. Everything changed, The band just
Speaker 1: rose to the occasion. Uh. We were having a blast.
Speaker 1: So like a great producer. Very often in films, like
Speaker 1: anywhere anything, any creative enterprise, I find the people that
Speaker 1: are the most successful and talented producers are the ones who,
Speaker 1: although they may not be able to do it themselves,
Speaker 1: they know what you need to do. They cut to
Speaker 1: what the synergy should be. They know what the dynamics
Speaker 1: should be in the studio because he come to you
Speaker 1: and go, don't do that doesn't work, and you listen
Speaker 1: to him. I would listen to him, and we tried
Speaker 1: his wife, We tried his way, his mutual respect. When
Speaker 1: we did just the way you are. Originally, the drumma
Speaker 1: was playing it like a cha cha don't go change
Speaker 1: when too. We hated it, hated drummer, couldn't figure out
Speaker 1: what to play. Phil actually told play it back with
Speaker 1: samba boom boom bop, boom boom, and it worked. It
Speaker 1: was like a backwards sign up. What are we doing?
Speaker 1: We didn't know what we're doing, but Phil was right.
Speaker 1: I came in with the idea of playing only the good.
Speaker 1: Diana is a reggae come out do, let me wait,
Speaker 1: let us stop. Much Liberty throws his sticks at me,
Speaker 1: because why are you doing Because closest you've been to
Speaker 1: Jamaica as queens, what are you doing is changing trains
Speaker 1: to go down to see for change that Jamaica, Change
Speaker 1: that Jamaica, the train to spe On. That's it. He said,
Speaker 1: I'm not playing this, I'm not playing what are we
Speaker 1: gonna do it? So Phil came up with this shuffle
Speaker 1: against straight forwards and the gas are going banana banana,
Speaker 1: bob banana, and we're playing and it worked. It was
Speaker 1: like j two things jammed into each other and Phil
Speaker 1: knows how to do that. And when we would get
Speaker 1: tired and we get discouraged, he says, just stay, stay
Speaker 1: a little long, try one more. All right, take a break,
Speaker 1: let's have some Chinese. Okay, go back in the post.
Speaker 1: Chinese food takes were always good. I don't know why
Speaker 1: that was that MSG man, it gets right into the fingertips.
Speaker 1: It worked, but he could wear Mozart would have been
Speaker 1: if they had MSG back then. Oh wow, he did
Speaker 1: pretty good. He did. He went as far as you
Speaker 1: could go without MSG. I yes, And then you do
Speaker 1: Nylon Curtain. That's eight two eight two was the Nylon
Speaker 1: and you said you wanted to be your Sergeant Pepper
Speaker 1: and what was it? It was. It's my favorite album
Speaker 1: because I could hear all the work that went into it,
Speaker 1: all the textures, all the layers. It's a song that
Speaker 1: you're particularly fond of. From that, it's very obscure. Don't
Speaker 1: get excited, don't say well, nobody noticed, nothing was. It
Speaker 1: was committed discreetly it was handled so needly, and it
Speaker 1: shouldn't surprise you out Oh, you know, break all the records,
Speaker 1: but the cassettes. I'd be lying in the fact on
Speaker 1: you that I had no regrets. There was so many mistakes,
Speaker 1: but what a difference it makes, and now it shouldn't
Speaker 1: surprise you at all. No hits. Allentown was kind of
Speaker 1: a hit off. That album didn't really sell a lot
Speaker 1: of records. What did you do after Nylon Curtain? Um?
Speaker 1: After the Nylon Curtain? Because it was such an intensive labor,
Speaker 1: the Nylon Curtain something very dense and very complex. I
Speaker 1: wanted to do something simple and dumb and happy, and
Speaker 1: I did an Innocent Man, which is really an homage
Speaker 1: to all the music of my teenage years. Frankie Valley
Speaker 1: in the Four Seasons was Uptown Girl, and that was
Speaker 1: a hit that was a big hig It was a joke.
Speaker 1: It was gen girl trying to second. She been living
Speaker 1: in her up town world app but she never had
Speaker 1: a backstreet guy and he had this impossibly highway Ever
Speaker 1: told her why I'm gonna track you? And I realized
Speaker 1: something like remember the song rag Doll Ye, And then
Speaker 1: the first was I love you just the way you
Speaker 1: are is that where I heard that before, just the
Speaker 1: way you were? And then there was a song. Um,
Speaker 1: I was trying to do little Antonine Imperials. Didn't not
Speaker 1: say shoot up? I wasn't ready for romance, shoop shoot up?
Speaker 1: Didn't we promise we would only be friends? And so
Speaker 1: we danced, though it was only a slow dance. I
Speaker 1: start a breaking. My promise is right there, and you'll
Speaker 1: recognize the chorus because it goes like this, This night
Speaker 1: is my It's only you, and night to my road
Speaker 1: is a long time away. This night can last for it,
Speaker 1: which is the pathetique by Beethoven. And I gave I
Speaker 1: gave credit and back at l V Beethoven. So so
Speaker 1: Bill he's co writing with somebody LV Beto Beethoven for
Speaker 1: Coming Out. But that was a fun album. I just
Speaker 1: I had met Christie. I had just gotten divorced from
Speaker 1: X one, and here I am meeting Whitney Houston when
Speaker 1: she was a model. El mcpheerson, I'm dating her. I'm
Speaker 1: dating Christie Brinkley. This is fantastic. I feel like I'm
Speaker 1: sixteen years old again, going we girls. It's all going great,
Speaker 1: and I'm a rock star. I got a pad the
Speaker 1: old sand Maritz on Central Park Sunday, which is now
Speaker 1: that I think the rich Carlton. So this music was
Speaker 1: me being a teenager, roll over again, falling in love,
Speaker 1: having romance and all that great stuff. So why did
Speaker 1: you get married? I don't know you're asking me exactly?
Speaker 1: Is that a part of your makeup? Which is married? Family?
Speaker 1: Was marriage the right thing to do? I was madly
Speaker 1: in love and when William loves you, marry him. That's it.
Speaker 1: That's how I feel. But I still feel like I
Speaker 1: can be madly in love and not be married. Yes,
Speaker 1: but I was married three times. When did you go
Speaker 1: to Russia? And how did that happen? Well, we played
Speaker 1: in Cuba in nineteen seventy nine, played the Karl Marx
Speaker 1: Theater in Havana, and everybody gets up on stage, the
Speaker 1: other American artists Steven Still's Viva Evolution, Viva Fidel, Chris
Speaker 1: Kristofferson Viva Revolution, Riva. The only's talking in Spanish. I
Speaker 1: get up on stage him in the last act. You know,
Speaker 1: it's a big shot and they don't want to hit
Speaker 1: even we hit his crap all the time. We want
Speaker 1: to hit big shot. I said, we got something going here.
Speaker 1: We're being subversive with rock and roll. This is what
Speaker 1: I love. How did that feel to you? What was
Speaker 1: the first place you played a big concert at when
Speaker 1: you were a star. You're a big music star, you're
Speaker 1: one of the biggest music stars ever, and you go
Speaker 1: to a foreign country and you realize music just transcends
Speaker 1: all of it. To Germany, I think it was in
Speaker 1: Frankfurt here seventy seven. I played in England and the
Speaker 1: English they're kind of fickle. They like you for about
Speaker 1: a month and then you're yesterday's papers. Oh we like that,
Speaker 1: Billy joe Ll, Billy joe Ll. But Germany we had
Speaker 1: a couple of and the Germans went berserk lot. They
Speaker 1: don't have seats. You're getting a standing ovation when you
Speaker 1: walk on the stage. Billy, Billy, I'm thinking, they don't
Speaker 1: know what they did to my family. Yeah, Billy, but
Speaker 1: I'm thinking, so this is how Adolf felt, ripping at
Speaker 1: my hands and tearing my clothes. This is great. The
Speaker 1: trip to Russia in eighties seven? Was that your first
Speaker 1: time there? First time? Everyone? How was that? How do
Speaker 1: they take to it? Was the first time they had
Speaker 1: ever had a major act from the West America. People
Speaker 1: have gone there before, but played with small p A
Speaker 1: systems in little private rooms. We played at the Lenin Stadium,
Speaker 1: the Olympic Stadium, and we brought a Western p A system,
Speaker 1: same with past and we'd use at Madison Square Garden.
Speaker 1: You know, the helicopters come in at the beginning of
Speaker 1: good Nights and they're looking around for the helicopters, and
Speaker 1: then the hard rock is hitting and the drums and
Speaker 1: they started going berserk. There were security guards going around
Speaker 1: giving people sedatives because they thought they were having fits.
Speaker 1: The Cold War ended for me right then. This is
Speaker 1: still when it was. The Reagan was calling with the
Speaker 1: Evil Empire, and we're not gonna have a war with
Speaker 1: these people. They can't even get toilet paper, right, you know,
Speaker 1: we're not gonna have afore, We're not gonna fight with them.
Speaker 1: I don't want to fight them. They dont They love
Speaker 1: us everywhere I went Viva America, Live America. This is
Speaker 1: great co war randed. I was thrilled that went the
Speaker 1: way it did. Let me ask you a question. You're funny.
Speaker 1: Everything it takes to be an actor. You could have done.
Speaker 1: You never wanted to do that. Never. I never was
Speaker 1: comfortable in front of a camera. Really, I became a
Speaker 1: musician because I never felt I was photogenic. I was
Speaker 1: never happy with how I looked. I was very comfortable
Speaker 1: in the studio. I'm very comfortable far away on a stage.
Speaker 1: Whenever there was a camera, it kind of destroyed what
Speaker 1: I was trying to create. It took away the imagination
Speaker 1: you could. I could look however I want. I could
Speaker 1: look like Carrie Grint. But I saw it reduced to
Speaker 1: an image. I went, no, no, no, no, no no,
Speaker 1: that's not a way to look at that guy. Well,
Speaker 1: I always say acting is what you do when you
Speaker 1: have no musical ability. If I could do what you do,
Speaker 1: I would never do what I That's what actors said
Speaker 1: that I would never, ever, ever, ever waste five minutes
Speaker 1: of doing what I do if I could do with you.
Speaker 1: That's a lot of actors which is so good at
Speaker 1: what you do. If I could do what you do. Music, music,
Speaker 1: it is saying if I could play, if I could
Speaker 1: write a film or a television program, you have to
Speaker 1: make an appointment with that and watch that. May me
Speaker 1: listen to music while you're jogging, while you're at the gym,
Speaker 1: while you're making love, while you're having dinner, while you're
Speaker 1: in the car. It can be the soundtrack to your
Speaker 1: life all day long, if you wanted in church anywhere.
Speaker 1: Music is everywhere, Music is everything, and acting is, like
Speaker 1: I said, what you do when you have no musical talents.
Speaker 1: So you got divorced the second time? Yes, and got
Speaker 1: remarried and divorced a third time. And when you have
Speaker 1: these things happened, do you write songs about that? No?
Speaker 1: I stopped writing songs about it when I got divorced
Speaker 1: the second time. That was ye, actually ninety four. The
Speaker 1: divorce happened, the album River Dreams came out, and I realized,
Speaker 1: you know what, I'm spinning out the story of my
Speaker 1: life to all these strangers. I'm kind of sick and
Speaker 1: tired everybody knowing my personal life and how I feel
Speaker 1: about one and that one. Did you resent that? I
Speaker 1: didn't resent it. I just decided to clam up. I
Speaker 1: feel like I have given away pieces of myself, maybe
Speaker 1: something I should have given to the relationship. I gave
Speaker 1: to the work. It's all consuming. If you're gonna do
Speaker 1: it right, you have to jump in with both of you.
Speaker 1: Do it a hundred percent music will do. That was
Speaker 1: a very harsh mistress music, you have to do it
Speaker 1: all the way. And maybe I didn't do things I
Speaker 1: should have done, or maybe I didn't take care of
Speaker 1: business the way I should have. Think here because the
Speaker 1: music and so I stopped writing songs about my personal relationships,
Speaker 1: but I kept writing music. And after the third marriage
Speaker 1: didn't work, I tried marriage. It's you know, three times.
Speaker 1: I tried three times. I never gave up on it.
Speaker 1: I just realized that this just doesn't I don't know,
Speaker 1: it doesn't work. People don't appreciate how it's like to
Speaker 1: have a relationship in this business that works. You gotta
Speaker 1: be really lucky, man, It's got to be. It's so
Speaker 1: much luck, you know, because, like you said, the career
Speaker 1: is the mistress and you're out there working like like
Speaker 1: I would look at my ex wife or ex girlfriends
Speaker 1: and I think, what would the alternative be? You want
Speaker 1: me to have no options and no work and I'm
Speaker 1: staying home all the time. Yeah, But on the other hand,
Speaker 1: how much of you are they getting? If you're in
Speaker 1: a part, you take on the role. It doesn't come
Speaker 1: off at five o'clock in the afternoon. And work. Most
Speaker 1: people leave their jobs. You have to be that character
Speaker 1: through the whole project. Now when I'm writing, I mean,
Speaker 1: I've got to stay in harness. I've got to be
Speaker 1: that songwriter guy. I'm preoccupied. Maybe I should change that
Speaker 1: to a B flat. You know that quarterback, don't. I'm
Speaker 1: obsessed with it. I wonder how much of me they're
Speaker 1: not getting because of that. I don't know if you
Speaker 1: if you were like that when you're doing a part.
Speaker 1: I find that in film it's different because film you
Speaker 1: don't really have a chance unless you work with a
Speaker 1: tremendously intense group of people. Now, when I've done play
Speaker 1: is it's different. When you do it. Well, you can
Speaker 1: sit back and you light up a cigarette. You're like, well, well, well,
Speaker 1: well we nail that way. I just just write it
Speaker 1: down in the books. You really feel some satisfaction. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you feel that way when you perform. When we perform,
Speaker 1: we got to do a show. Do a show. Do
Speaker 1: you come off stage after a show and you sit
Speaker 1: there and go, well, there it is. But that was
Speaker 1: a good and gentlemen, Billy Joe. They'll be talking about
Speaker 1: this for a while for a few days. But we
Speaker 1: also know when We Stuck, We Come Over were terrible.
Speaker 1: Don't remember that one right? Right? Why did they applaud
Speaker 1: you know? Last play at Shay Yeah? Do you think
Speaker 1: he did well? Yeah? That was good. They were both
Speaker 1: good shows. That the double last Double Player show we
Speaker 1: did the two nights. Yes, that was exhilarating the hometown crowd,
Speaker 1: and it's just it was exhilarating. And we were on
Speaker 1: stage with three and a half hours and I didn't
Speaker 1: realize how hot it was, and it was sweating. I'm
Speaker 1: watching the movie of me. Somebody give that guy a towel.
Speaker 1: I was. He's like soaking luck, he's so wet and slimy.
Speaker 1: Wipe him off. We're having such a good time. We
Speaker 1: walked off, and for weeks after they were kind of
Speaker 1: amping from it. New York loves you, I know, I know,
Speaker 1: and I love New York. That's why I live here.
Speaker 1: But I put away the recording part of my career,
Speaker 1: and I put away for the time being. Performed what's
Speaker 1: that music? That's my telephone? Yeah? Yeah, the theme from
Speaker 1: the Godfather. Is your ring tone on your phone? Yes,
Speaker 1: that's amazing. Well, like I got to think about what
Speaker 1: my ring toe to get the guys on the road
Speaker 1: called me godfather. Why do you come to me, Sarah
Speaker 1: Bonna Sara? When have I haven't done respect? You'll never
Speaker 1: invite me the house for a couple off. Do you
Speaker 1: appreciate who you are? People who love you, they adore you.
Speaker 1: You are so talented, you are so like it makes
Speaker 1: me want to choke up. How talented you are? Do
Speaker 1: you know who you are? I know I have a
Speaker 1: talent from music. I don't think I'm all that good.
Speaker 1: I think I have a good perspective on it. I
Speaker 1: can separate the star stuff from the musician stuff. The
Speaker 1: music is really impy. Have to stay separate there. Well,
Speaker 1: one is a job and one is a life. The
Speaker 1: job thing I can take off at five o'clock and
Speaker 1: after another rock star thing, I go, I go shopping.
Speaker 1: I cook my own food, I washed the dishes, I
Speaker 1: take out the garbage. I know who that guy is.
Speaker 1: And the music is has nothing to do with money
Speaker 1: or career or it's just part of me. It's like love, music,
Speaker 1: love food, friendship, my daughter and all these great things.
Speaker 1: How's your daughter? She's great? Um? You know. I know
Speaker 1: how to take the job hat off and just kind
Speaker 1: of be a normal It took a long time to
Speaker 1: separate them out. Okay, I can be a musician and
Speaker 1: not be a rock star. You know, I'm still trying
Speaker 1: to convince people I'm not a rock star, and then though,
Speaker 1: yes you are, you are a rock star. You okay, fine,
Speaker 1: But a lot of that is it has a job
Speaker 1: aspect to it. I worked very hard at what and
Speaker 1: writing because that's my deepest love. I think that's really
Speaker 1: where I belong. The rock star thing I've never really
Speaker 1: been comfortable with because I don't think I look like
Speaker 1: a rock star. I didn't really set out to be
Speaker 1: a rock star. I became a rock star serendipitously. You
Speaker 1: became a rock star in spite of yourself, in spite
Speaker 1: of myself. As as much as you try to kill it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, I don't put that camera too close to me, exactly.
Speaker 1: I don't want to make a good video. Let make
Speaker 1: a bad video. I don't want to be in a
Speaker 1: photo session. I hate taking pictures. I don't want to
Speaker 1: go to this opening. I don't want to go to
Speaker 1: that schmooze fest. I just didn't do any of that stuff.
Speaker 1: But I'm comfortable with it now. Do me a favor.
Speaker 1: What's a song that you think yourself? You know, I
Speaker 1: really still enjoy hearing that song. It doesn't have to
Speaker 1: be a hit. What's one you just like that you haven't,
Speaker 1: But do you really really like this? Really? I've been
Speaker 1: doing masterclasses at colleges and I get to play all
Speaker 1: these obscure songs. Played one the other night, and I said,
Speaker 1: that's a really good song. It is no rhyme, not
Speaker 1: till the very end is when rhyme comes, but the
Speaker 1: lyrics work. It's from the Nylon curtain, and it's called
Speaker 1: Where's the Orchestra? Where the orchestra? Wasn't this supposed to
Speaker 1: be a musical? Here I am in the balcony. How
Speaker 1: the hell could I have missed the overture? I love
Speaker 1: the scenery, even though I have so loudly know I
Speaker 1: did all Billy Joel says he doesn't look back on
Speaker 1: his life that much. Last year, he decided not to
Speaker 1: publish his long awaited memoir, entitled The Book of Joel.
Speaker 1: He said, instead of quote, the best expression of my
Speaker 1: life and it's up and downs, has been and remains
Speaker 1: my music unquote. Lines for an extended version of my
Speaker 1: interview with Billy Joel, listen to our podcast and Here's
Speaker 1: the Thing dot Org. This is Alec Baldwin. Here's the
Speaker 1: Thing is produced by Emily Botin and Kathy Russo, with
Speaker 1: support from Jim Briggs, Brian Cosgrove, ed Herbstman, Melanie Hoops
Speaker 1: and Monica Hopkins. This is Alec Baldwin and you're listening
Speaker 1: to Here's the Thing. You're the King. Thank you, No really,
Speaker 1: you're the King man. Thank you, Thank you for coming.
Speaker 1: Thanks