I wanted to start a series called “Let’s Argue About Deep Cuts: (Insert Artist Here) Edition.” It would be aimed at calling attention to the back catalogs of some of the best musical acts out there. The title grew out of a recent online encounter that has left me scarred.
It was on X (formerly known as…I don’t remember anymore.) Or maybe Facebook. There are a lot of things I don’t remember anymore. And the poster was asking for your favorite “deep cut” from a particular well-known artist. I do remember the artist but am withholding it for my own reasons. As I said, I still have a scar.
Anyway, I knew this artist reasonably well – had seen him (or her) two or three times live – and had some songs I considered deep cuts in mind. I wasn’t sure what qualified as a deep cut, so I scanned Spotify and Apple and ruled out the top 25 songs that appeared in a generic search. I figured anything below that would qualify as “deep.”
Wow – was I wrong.
Ten best deep cuts (and they really are!) from Billy Joel
The vitriol I received! “This is hardly a deep cut. He (or she) has played this in every concert dating back to the Industrial Revolution. You obviously know NOTHING!”
So I realized that if I was going to write about such things, I needed a rule. A rubric perhaps. (I don’t really know what a rubric is, but it sounds like something I would need.) I decided that I would confine my definition of “deep cut” to anything that was not released as a single.
This is hardly foolproof. As we are about to see, some of a popular artist’s most beloved songs were not singles. So this isn’t really about deep cuts. It’s about great songs that were not released as singles when they first appeared. Maybe later as a live track or on a compilation. But not when we all first encountered them.
So on today’s edition of “Let’s Argue About Deep Cuts” (which I don’t think my editor is actually going to let me use as a title), today’s contestant is Billy Joel.
Billy Joel released 12 studio albums between 1971 and 1993. That’s approximately 120 songs. Almost 50 of them were released as singles. That leaves around 75 non-singles to choose from. Never fear. There are some great songs eligible for consideration, including several of his best and most well-known. Here, in countdown fashion, are his ten best non-singles.
“MIAMI, 2017 (SEEN THE LIGHT GO OUT ON BROADWAY)” from Turnstiles (1976)
The final track on Joel’s fourth album is an epic, apocalyptic fantasy about the destruction of New York. It was written during the 1970s when the city was on the brink of collapse, but it has taken on an almost mythic stature as the Big Apple confronts one new Armageddon after another. This was never truer than in the aftermath of 9/11 when Joel’s opening lyrics – “I’ve seen the lights go out on Broadway – I saw the Empire State laid low” – seemed eerily prophetic. Joel would play the song at post-9/11 benefits, cementing his status as New York’s preeminent pop chronicler in the last quarter of the 20th century.
Songs that use a date stamp are fascinating cultural documents. He wrote this song about New York from his current then-home in Los Angeles and projected it 40 years into the future. But time and distance did nothing to quell the accuracy of the end of his story – “I’ve seen the lights go out on Broadway – I saw the mighty skyline fall – The boats were waiting at the bowery – The union went on strike, they never sailed at all – They sent a carrier out from Norfolk – And picked Yankees up for free – They said that Queens could stay, they blew the Bronx away – And sank Manhattan out at sea.” Try and tell me anyone would be shocked if we saw that exact story on tomorrow’s news.
“EVERYBODY LOVES YOU NOW” from Cold Spring Harbor (1971)
Joel’s first album, recorded when he was just 22, was a modest success. You can quibble with me as to whether this song was a single or not. It wasn’t. It was released as the B-side of both actual singles – “She’s Got a Way” and “Tomorrow is Today.” I know of no mathematical equation in which two B-side releases equals one actual single.
“Everybody Loves You Now” would prove to be highly representative of the things Joel would do best throughout his career. He engages in plenty of rapid-fire pyrotechnics on his piano, he name-drops New York landmarks (the Staten Island Ferry and Cold Spring Harbor), and he writes some snarky lyrics about a stuck-up girl he can’t seem to shake. All in a catchy upbeat 3-minute earworm.
“ROOT BEER RAG” from Streetlife Serenade (1974)
Billy’s brief sojourn to the West Coast ended with his third album, Streetlife Serenade. After this, he would return to NY. Despite the presence of his second top 40 hit, “The Entertainer,” it is not a particularly good album. But the instrumental piano workout, “Root Beer Rag,” truly stands out.
At the 1974 Oscar Awards, George Roy Hill’s The Sting was the big winner. The period piece prominently featured the ragtime music of Scott Joplin, and composer Marvin Hamlisch took home one of the film’s seven awards for his Joplin-based scoring. Joel borrowed the title of Joplin’s theme song in The Sting for “The Entertainer.” And he wrote his own absurdly catchy rag as well. It showcased his lightning playing and his ability to mimic some of the best of traditional American music.
“SUMMER, HIGHLAND FALLS” from Turnstiles (1976)
Billy Joel could pound out a piano rhythm with the best of them. But he could also use his piano to backstop lovely songs about relationships. “Summer, Highland Falls” could have easily toppled over into pretension with its multi-syllabic rhymes and pop psychology. Yet somehow, he pulls off a verse like “How thoughtlessly we dissipate our energies – Perhaps we don’t fulfill each other’s fantasies – And as we stand upon the ledges of our lives with our respective similarities – It’s either sadness or euphoria.”
Turnstiles is an integral album in Joel’s career. None of its songs charted upon initial release in the US. Since his previous two albums both had some modest hits, Turnstiles was viewed as a disappointment at first. But when it came time for Joel to release his first live album – 1981’s Songs in the Attic – he included more tracks from Turnstiles than from any of his other albums. “Summer, Highland Falls” was one of the four Turnstiles cuts that got a full live treatment.
“YOU’RE MY HOME” from Piano Man (1973)
The title track from Joel’s second album became his signature song. It was his first hit. It was the first time that most people heard him. The rest of the album mostly featured the rocking juvenile braggadocio of “The Ballad of Billy the Kid,” “Worse Comes to Worst,” and “Captain Jack.” Some people liked that version of Billy. But a lot more preferred the simple heartfelt beauty of “You’re My Home.” It showcased something that, when at his best, he could do better than most pop songwriters.
The live version of “You’re My Home” from Songs in the Attic was released as a single in 1981, but the original album version was not. At that point in his career, Billy was still positioning himself as a bad-ass rock & roller. “You’re My Home” showed early on that at heart, Billy Joel was a balladeer who could use his rock & roll sensibilities to rescue those ballads from the soporifics of many of the era’s softer love songs.
“LAURA” from The Nylon Curtain (1982)
The first five songs on this list have all come from Joel’s first four albums. This is the first from a later 1980’s album. The progression is obvious. “Laura” is far more complex, both musically and lyrically than the similarly-themed “Everybody Loves You Now” from his debut album eleven years earlier.
Because Joel ended his first marriage to Elizabeth Weber right around the time The Nylon Curtain was released, the common assumption was that “Laura” was modeled on Weber. Joel denied that and would later confirm that the song was written about his mother, noting that the lyric “Sometimes I feel that this godfather deal is all wrong – How can she hold an umbilical cord for so long” should have been a tip-off.
An interesting little quirk of musical history – he concludes the song with the uber-co-dependent lines “If she had to she would put herself in my chair – Even though I faced electrocution.” This is the exact same image that Bruce Springsteen uses in the title track on his Nebraska album, released the same year, though the effects are radically different in the two songs.
“SCANDINAVIAN SKIES” from The Nylon Curtain (1982)
“Laura” was not a political song, but a good part of The Nylon Curtain was. Two of the three released singles (“Allentown” and “Goodnight Saigon”) dealt directly with hot-button current events. “Scandinavian Skies” may or may not be political in nature. Its lyrics are cryptic. But in its music, it is pure John Lennon.
Joel speaks often of his infatuation with, and his debt to, the Beatles. Along with the doo-wop arrangements that would come to dominate Joel’s later-‘80s songs, the Beatles were his biggest early influence. The influence can be felt throughout The Nylon Curtain, but nowhere more potently than on “Scandinavian Skies,” With the assistance of synth master Rob Mounsey, violin virtuoso David Nadien, and especially conductor Marin Alsop and her String Fever ensemble, Joel crafts a soundscape that is highly reminiscent of “I Am the Walrus.”
“NEW YORK STATE OF MIND” from Turnstiles (1976)
I’m not sure why “New York State of Mind” was never released as a single. Three other tracks from Turnstiles were singles, and of them, only “I’ve Loved These Days” comes close to being as good as this one. “New York State of Mind,” as the title suggests, is the most obvious homage Billy wrote to his home state. As previously noted, Turnstiles marked his return to NY. He opened the album with “Say Goodbye to Hollywood” and closed out side one with his simple jazzy piano and the pronouncement “I’m taking a Greyhound on the Hudson River Line – I’m in a New York state of mind.”
Joel takes his time with the song, jamming by himself for about a minute before beginning to sing. His regular band joins in the first verse, and then strings arranged by Ken Ascher provide a highly romanticized quality by the time the second verse dawns. Then it’s long-time collaborator Richie Cannata’s turn to take over. Cannata’s sax solo places you directly in Manhattan’s jazz scene. Billy Joel was home.
“SCENES FROM AN ITALIAN RESTAURANT” from The Stranger (1977)
OK – for the top two songs on this list, a little backstory is required. In 1977, Billy Joel released his fifth album, The Stranger. It would prove to be his major breakthrough, both critically and commercially. It reached number 2 on the charts in the US and remained on the charts longer than any other album he would ever release. It also paved the way for his next two albums to go all the way to number 1. It provided Joel with his first Top Ten single (“Just the Way You Are”), and of the five released singles, four of them landed in the Top 25.
With half the ten songs released as singles, you might think there wasn’t a lot of quality left on the back half of the album. That is largely true of what happens on Joel’s later albums, which is why this list is so heavily weighted toward the 1970s. By the end of the ‘80s, as many as seven of the tracks on multiple albums were in fact released as singles. But on The Stranger, the two best songs were never released as singles.
With “Scenes From an Italian Restaurant,” that decision was almost entirely related to length. At over seven minutes long, “Scenes…” was not exactly a standard-issue single in the 1970s. (A few years earlier, on “The Entertainer,” Billy had lamented music labels' propensity for cutting every single down to “three-oh-five.”
If “Scandinavian Skies” revealed Joel’s debt to Lennon, “Scenes…” was all Paul McCartney. Around this time, McCartney was experimenting with multi-movement pop songs – suites that would move back and forth between several distinct song motifs while maintaining a coherent throughline. That’s exactly what Billy achieved on “Scenes…”
There are three sections – the romantic nostalgia that opens and closes the song, and the two up-tempo themes that tell the basic story in the middle. “Brenda and Eddie were the popular steadies and the King and the Queen of the prom” is the beginning of a classic mini-movie that runs “from the high to the low to the end of the show for the rest of their lives.”
If you do a quick internet search for Billy Joel’s greatest songs, “Scenes…”, the song that was considered too long to be a single, shares the distinction with the iconic “Piano Man” of being at the top of that list more than any other Billy Joel song. Its reputation is well-deserved.
“VIENNA” from The Stranger (1977)
Except I like this song even more. This is Billy the balladeer, and I think this is where he is at his best. With “Scenes…” there is at least a logic behind why it was never released as a single. There is no such logic that explains “Vienna.”
It is a gorgeous tribute to his father, beginning with a simple piano intro before giving way to Billy’s vocal “Slow down, you crazy child – You’re so ambitious for a juvenile – But then if you’re so smart then tell me why are you still so afraid?” Each verse ends with the soothing reminder that “Vienna waits for you.”
What is Vienna? Joel has talked about it over the years. Clearly, on one level he is talking about the city of Vienna, Austria. But there is a mystery in the place and the meaning. It may be wrapped up in the complex attitudes Joel had toward his father, and to the pursuit of stardom. As in many great songs, each listener can take away her own meaning. I personally think it is the best song Billy Joel ever wrote, and I know I am not alone. It may not have sounded like a single to some A&R man back in 1977, but it has gone on to become one of Billy Joel’s most beloved songs.