I sometimes forget that back when I was a kid, Billy Joel was my favorite singer. Maybe I repress that memory, but that's another story. 52nd Street and The Stranger were my go-to albums for a quiet night at home, reading in the big green chair. Which is odd, because at the time, Glass Houses was his big album. He'd jut turned the corner from somewhat obscure, kinda respected singer/songwriter/balladeer to badass rock star and whipping boy for Springsteen's fanboys, and let's face it, he probably deserved it.
Because Billy Joel, for all the macho posturing of his megahit phase, was also always a schmuck at heart. Obsessive, depressive, angry, but always too willing to yield to his heart of schmalz. There's a certain machismo that can only be measured by when the guy who wrote "She's always a woman to me" later tries to pass off "You May be Right" or "Only the Good Die Young" as bad-boy rebel anthems. I always felt as though if he ever met up with a genuine tough guy, with a Bruce Springsteen or one of those bastards from a heavy metal band, he'd go down before the second punch.
Which only made his pathos that much more interesting. I'm just gonna say it: Billy Joel was every nerd's go-to macho surrogate. I didn't know this when I was a kid, but I sensed it.
Looking back on his hits now, I think Sometimes a Fantasy might just sum up his whole life. Because, man, this video, I just don't know.
It starts with a phone call, one of those ancient push-button things, and Billy calling some girl. He's in a run-down squatter's place, squirming on a bed, Vacant sign flashing outside his window, all bug-eyed with desperate love. He starts singing into the phone when the woman answers. She's all elegant, dressed in a white gown, striding indignantly about her posh all-white apartment. She clearly hates Joel but for some reason won't hang up. Probably she's got tons of money and can't stand that Billy's a poor artist whose lithium prescription ran out.
Here's Nervous Billy on the phone:
And here's his lady, having none of it:
Nervous Billy doesn't quit, though. She's on the phone, and that means there's hope. Nervous Billy didn't get a zillion platinum albums by hearing no and taking it. No, Nervous Billy, when he's desperate for action, he has a guiding spirit he can consult, a suave bastard who knows how to handle guff. So every once in a while Nervous Billy looks at this other Billy Joel who's apparently in the room with him. This is Cool Billy, with his hair slicked back and a big old sexy... beard? Cool Billy nods and smokes, and encourages Nervous Billy to just keep singing. But things don't go well, until Nervous Billy hands the phone over to Cool Billy. And all he does, see, is hold it up to his ear and raise an eyebrow.
Thusly:
And then she's all:
And, oh, yeah....
Suddenly the chick is all hot for Nervous Billy. And even though he's singing the same crap song, now it's all syrup and honey to that uptight rich ice queen. There's some more lyrics about phone sex, and they get all hot, and there's shots of feet clenching and loins quivering in quick cuts, and then a split-screen of them like they're in the same bed... and then it's all over, and the video cuts to a ringing phone that isn't answered at all. Sometimes a Fantasy, it turns out, was only a fantasy.
This is like the ultimate coked-up genius video. If there were MacArthur genius grants for things that seemed cool when you were totally cranked on coke, this video would have earned Joel a zillion bucks. It's also a glimpse into the nervous psyche of Joel himself, a man who despite selling all those albums, despite sold out shows and marrying Christy Brinkley, could never quite see himself as anything but a schlub from Long Island, screaming into a microphone for people who would never appreciate him for himself, but always fell for the suave bastard he wanted them to think he was.
I'm kind of over Billy Joel, and so is he, actually. He stopped writing songs after 1993 and got bored with singing his greatest hits over and over. He lately made a splash with a once-a-month stand at Madison Square gardens, but before that he'd seemingly resigned himself to living kind of a quiet life on Long Island with his fourth wife. But every once in a while, he can still make a splash, like he did in 2012 for the hurricane Sandy relief concert. If you want a better run-down of what he's up to, check out this Grantland piece, or this question and answer thing in the New York Times, which shows that he's settled down a bit, but probably isn't above riding his motorcycle in the rain, if that's what it takes.
You can watch the whole twitchy, wtf-y masterpiece of Sometimes a Fantasy here:
