I like most of the man’s work, even (especially) a lot of the songs derided above.
I think Only the Good Die Young is overplayed, andUptown Girl is verging on that, but I still like them.
I can’t stand You May Be Right (I May Be Crazy), or whatever that song is. I hated it as the theme song to the Dave Barry show, and I hate it on the radio.
Like hell I can’t fault him. The fact that it’s based on a real person has *nothing at all *to do with whether it is a good lyric.
I’m just thankful he didn’t also know an Irene who’s still a marine, because he would have worked that in as well.
mmm
You’re my castle, you’re my cabin, you’re my instant pleasure dome?
That line makes Davy who’s still in the Navy look brilliant by comparison.
Or Gerard, who’s still in the Coast Guard.
LOL. Well, OK, that line is strained in order to get the next line, which I think is very sweet: I need you in my house 'cause your my home.
Here we see Irv
He’s in the reserves
And probably doing Dave’s wife.
I didn’t see anyone mention C’Etait Toi (You Were the One)
Since silenus covered it, I’ll avoid giving my thoughts on the actual OP and just make unwitty remarks. Tip your waitress, etc.
My understanding was that the dating was OK, but the actual marriage didn’t work out…
Horrifying, or Awesome?
OK rabies sucks, but what if she was a non-rabid racoon?
It would be easier for me to list the songs that I do like.
He’s sitting with Neal
The ex-navy seal
Whose vocals can cut like a knife
mmm
At the back table is Ray
He once was a great Green Beret
Then he got far to bold
he asked and he told
And they told him to please go away
Oh! La-di-da diddy-da …
So sing us a song, you’re the piano man!
Sing us a song tonight.
'Cause each of our names
Rhyme with our claims to fame
And that is the way that you write
I’m surprised nobody’s brought up “I Go to Extremes”, which has the desperate whiff of a has-been trying to convince the kids that he’s really a hardcore badass. Umm…No.
And it should be noted that in this highly entertaining and lucid book, there’s an extended, very well-written argument about how Joel is the Worst Rocker Ever.
Listening to Billy Joel makes me think of Tom Hanks dressed in drag.
Then it makes me want to get drunk and crash my car into a tree.
Piano Man is a good song but it is despite some horrible rhyming and lyrics (e.g. “I’m talking’ with Davy who’s still in the Navy”. Nobody knows what a real estate novelist is either. Read the lyrics some time. They wouldn’t earn a B in an 8th grade English class.
I listen to Billy Joel most days but I despise “Scenes from an Italian Restaurant”. It just reeks of cheesy trying to pass off as classy or romantic. I just picture rejects from The Jersey Shore going on an awkward date when I hear it.
Shag - I thought that “Real Estate Novelist” was a pretty good lyric, at least in the context of “Piano Man”. It means someone who wants to be a Writer, but hasn’t finished a novel much less got one published, and is selling Real Estate to get by.
So the song has produced exactly the effect it was designed to? 
In my opinion, while he has written an impressive number of memorable songs, the vast majority of his work is forgettable.
Notice that I chose the words “memorable” and “forgettable” rather than “good” or “bad”. I just don’t find Joel’s music intense enough or interesting enough to speak of loving or hating it. He’s got some good songs but nothing that would compel me to buy an album of his.
He’s more the sort of artist who has some good songs spread out over their catalogue but not the sort of artist who put out albums full of great songs. He was very much a pop artist (he hasn’t made any new music in over 20 years), each album containing a few songs intended to be “hits” and the rest being filler material. He doesn’t have an “Abbey Road” or “Sgt. Pepper’s” album like The Beatles did where basically every song on the album is great.
That said, I think there was a very noticeable drop in quality starting with “An Innocent Man”. He was always very commercial of course, but songs like “Tell Her About It” just seem to exude that shallow, soulless, uber-commercial pop sound that made the 80s such a bleak period for music.
Since you brought this thread back from the dead, it gives me the chance to link the Adult Swim “Piano God.”
Pressure is such a fantastically terrible song that I secretly like it.
I’m sure you have some cosmic rash…anale
All your life is channel 13, Sesame Street, what does it mean?
PRESSURE
It’s just awesome in it’s awful. The music video is all kinds of 80’s goodness too.
Movin’ Out retroactively destroyed Joel’s entire catalogue. Those of us who had the misfortune to see it can never like him again. It was truly that bad.
“It’s Still Rock and Roll To Me” - do not like! Most of his other stuff is tolerable to good, I can’t find it in me to hate. He’s coming to our town - again - for a huge concert - again, so he has lots of baby boomer fans. I notice his tour dates in Madison Square Garden seem to be sold out for the whole year.