The last song on 1993's River of Dreams was a ballad titled "Famous Last Words," in which Billy Joel uttered the now prophetic lyrics, "These are the last words I have to say." After that album, Joel turned the other cheek toward popular music and started a new chapter - writing classical, instrumental compositions.
Last night in Cohen Auditorium, Joel went back on his Famous Last Words. The man often referred to as "The Piano Man" used plenty of words to sing and schmooze for three hours and 20 minutes, spanning over 30 years of hit songs and life experience for a crowd of 620.
"Billy Joel: A Night of Questions, Answers, and a Little Music" brought Joel center stage to, among other things, poke fun at George W. Bush, cover James Taylor, mock Bob Dylan, and answer questions about his career. Pianist Richard Joo joined Joel to play selections from Fantasies and Delusions, his latest album of self-composed classical compositions.
Joel was right at home from the night's beginning. "Tufts! Ah, Tufts...I played here back in the early '70s...one of the first places we headlined a college gig. I remember thinking, 'Wow, I'm gonna play at a college in Boston!'" He surveyed Cohen's d?©cor and commented, "The room looks different; they perked it up a little.
"I'm back now...I won't go away," he said.
Joel started off the night behind his piano, playing "Summer, Highland Falls," a song from 1976's Turnstiles. "I figured I'd start off with a piece of music, rather than starting off with the 'blah blah blah'," he said.
The 'blah blah blah' came next. Joel implored the audience to pick his brain about his music, the music industry, composing, writing lyrics, and any aspect of musicianship that it was curious about.
"I've made so many mistakes, and I've survived to tell the tale...pick my brain," he said.
Six hundred audience members did just that, asking about his roots, his ambitions, and the meanings of specific songs like "Summer, Highland Falls" ("You really like that song, huh...you must suffer from manic depression") and "Falling in the Rain." Joel reluctantly played the latter, a song from 1971's Cold Spring Harbor.
"One of the most self-absorbed albums ever," he recalled. "I was contemplating my navel...I was, like, bent in half."
Joel then rolled his eyes before playing "Falling in the Rain," calling it "one of the worst lyrics I ever wrote."
"I actually used the word 'glade.' You know, like that air freshener shit?"
With 19 albums of material, Joel has a lot of words he's written and a lot that he'd sooner forget. But what about the ones that he can't help but forget?
That's where Joel's cheat sheets - four big black binders - come into play. These folders sit atop his piano. In them resides his entire catalogue of songs and lyrics, just in case his memory fails him. "It's kind of like Linus' security blanket," he explained.
When the words are taken care of, then melody is where Joel's focus is concentrated. When asked about his melodic inspiration, he explained that he draws from thematic, melodic music - everything form Broadway to Sinatra, Latin music to Rhythm and Blues. His mother was English and filled the house with the sounds of Gilbert and Sullivan, which Joel demonstrated from behind the piano in mock-operetta form.
He then tinkered around on the baby grand, speaking of his father's German influences and playing Bach. "Hey," he said, tooling around with a melody, "That sounds a lot like 'Leningrad'!" referring to his 1992 hit.
Joel also fielded many questions about the art of songwriting and the role that the form of expression has played in his life. "I always found songwriting painful - like a caesarian section. I don't know what it's like to have a child, but I've had kidney stones," he said.
He told of a recent attempt at opening up the songwriting wound that has yet to fully heal.
"I started to write a song out of nowhere... and it sounded kind of French to me. So I called it the Champs Elysees."
After sitting down to treat the audience to snippets of the never-before heard melody, Joel explained why the song will probably never make it on a future album. "My guitarist looks at the song, and asks me... 'You wrote a song called the Champs Eyelashes?"
"And I said you know what...nevermind."
If Joel does dabble with songwriting in the near future, it might be to capture the sorrow and confusion of Sept. 11 into words and melody. "What would I say? How could I put it into words? I'm trying to write a requiem," he said. "You need something of score and scale, something immense, a mass of voices. I'm going to give it a shot. And if I can't do it well, I'm not going to do it at all."
Joel advised one student curious about the cures for writer's block by telling of a time he was similarly aching for lack of words. He walked down to Manhattan's Little Italy ("When it was really Little Italy. Now it's kind of like Little New Jersey.") and sat down at a restaurant with a blank pad.
"That's Billy Joel. He's writing a song," he heard a waiter say.
"They think I can do it, so therefore I must be able to do it," he remembered thinking. And so he did.
This same atmosphere was inspiration for one of his best known hits, "Scenes from an Italian Restaurant," which he dissected and played for an ecstatic crowd. Throughout the night, Joel continued to refer to the art of songwriting and the inspirations behind it.
"I write for my own edification...I never wrote for radio, audiences, the record company...I write for women. Women love it when you write shit for them."
Throughout his advising, he stressed the need for writers to challenge themselves to find what drives them.
"Fool yourself, break up with your girlfriend, fight with your parents, have a glass of wine...if you think you can, you will. If you think you can't, you won't," he said.
It was this philosophy that drove Joel to follow his lifelong goal of composing classical music. Despite his record company's initial shock at his desire to release a classical album, Joel composed this year's Fantasies and Delusions, which he proudly reminded the audience throughout the night has been number one on the classical charts for six weeks.
Joo joined Joel three times onstage to play selections from the album, including the nine-minute "Reverie," and a three-part suite titled "Starcrossed," which Joel described as an instrumentation of the courtship process.
"Tufts University," the pianist said, upon sitting behind his instrument. "One of those rare American universities where you come to study and you're praised for your brains and not your ball skills."
Joel spoke a bit about his passion for classical music and his need to "grow up" from his days as a rock artist.
"I knew I didn't want to be a concert pianist," he said. "I wanted to be a composer.
"I got to be 40, and I didn't feel like 'Billy' anymore...but then 'William Joel'? Like I could ever call myself William coming from my neighborhood."
It was this neighborhood that almost prevented Joel from following his pianist aspirations. "It was tough enough taking piano lessons. They used to beat the shit outta me!"
At age 16, Joel took his pent-up frustration and channeled it toward something a little less delicate than plinking on piano keys; he became a boxer and entertained the idea of eventually going professional.
"But," he said, "the piano called me."
This calling has led, over the last 30-plus years, to three Greatest Hits albums and the status as pop music's third best-selling male of all time. When asked to choose one song from his four binders-full of material as his "favorite," Joel was at a loss.
The audience was more than happy to help. Suggestions rained out (When asked to play his epic "Angry Young Man," Joel called back "That's not a song, that's an opus!"), and eventually he sat down to play the reflective "And So It Goes."
"Christie thought that one was about her," he snickered, referring to his supermodel ex-wife.
Throughout the night, Joel also shared hits "The Entertainer" and "Downeaster Alexa." And when he pulled out his harmonica, the crown knew the night was about to end. Joel played his signature "Piano Man" and left the stage to a thunderous standing ovation.
He and Joo took the stage once more to sample a classical piece from the new album, after which Joel proclaimed his famous mantra - "Don't take any shit from anybody!" and officially left the building.
"Don't be afraid," he told the audience before walking offstage. "Be brave"
Last night, those were Joel's Famous Last Words.
But when explaining the song before playing it for the crowd, he assured that it shouldn't be taken completely to heart.
"It had a disclaimer," he said. "These are the last words I have to say...Before another age goes by."
