All right, And last but not least, Billy Joel and So it Goes, which is a music documentary capturing the life and career of Billy Joel. And of course this features exclusive interviews, are Chibo footage, and personal memorabilia, and I believe it's a touching portrait of one of music's most enduring icons.
So let me go through this one.
Really quickly and start by saying that this was a two part documentary. Shane, there are five hours of Billy Joel.
Now, yes, five?
Now what let me tell you five the five hours actually work because it would almost be like the Luther Van Draws dot came in at about an hour forty. Luther Van Draws's career is nineteen seventy six, He makes his first song in nineteen eighty and then he passes away in twenty twenty four, so he has a lifespan of about twenty twenty five years.
As an artist.
Right. More than that, well, I mean no saying that when the first Luther album wasn't really like the album that popped, he didn't pop until eighty one and he passed no for it, so he's about twenty three. I'm being generous about twenty five, twenty somebody years name somebody else, think about somebody like Prince right, so Prince Now remember Netflix had a nine hour documentary that they funded, shot it,
and then pulled it. Yeah, so five hours sounds like a lot of time, but when you've got like a monumental career. So in a Billy Joel case, the whole first part goes up until about from nineteen I want to say, was it the early seventies till about the late sixties to about nineteen eighty two, And the whole focus of that period is him finally breaking through because he had been making some songs and he had good songs, but the albums weren't popping. His first album that pops
comes in like around nineteen seventy seven. I don't want to say, I want to make sure I'm getting this right because, oh, for whatever reason, I don't have internet in here today.
What was the nineteen seventy seven Billy Joel album?
Was that class Houses? No before class class Houses? Because class Houses was the second album, right that popped, and then he had another album after that. So he had three straight like number one albums in a row that really hit. But this and remember he had made Piano Man earlier. That was like, like, again, Shane's looking. Piano Man is a huge song, right for Billy Joel.
He had also made The Stranger. That's the album for Billy Joel that really popped.
So after that he had had some singles that had worked, but he was looking for that breakthrough album and that was the breakthrough album, right, and then Glass Houses came after that, and then there was a third album after that that really hit for Billy Joel. Right, glass Houses my favorite toom.
Okay, So what people don't know. What I didn't know.
Was that Billy Joel's whole story is absolutely amazing. Man.
So of course he had a father who.
Wasn't really kind to him as a kid, and this is Billy Joel's words, not Tim Gordon's, and his father just disappeared, and years later he found out that his father was alive, living in Vienna with a brand new family, hence the song Vienna.
I didn't know any of this stuff. I was like wow, So I thought, what the.
Documentary did really really well is like these monumental songs that Billy Joel made, he has these stories that lead into all these songs.
Like piano Man.
Piano Man was about him playing, you know, when he was trying to get on and he would show up and he would play these piano bars. But what made a genius was that he was talking about he wrote the song about him, but reflecting on all these different art types of people that he met that he played for. And also, let me just share that the documentary has like a superstar lineup of people who sat down to talk about Billy Joel. Everybody from Bruce Springsteen, the NAS to.
Don Henley, John Coogar, Magle.
I mean, he like they're huge people, sting I think, sits down and has some stuff. So everybody's talking about Billy Joel. Right, Billy Joel was just a super gifted songwriter. So the first episode ends because I I skipped the narrative. He was he was in his first band and his best friend in the band.
Was married to this woman.
I can't remember what the name was, but they he started spending time with this guy's wife and fell in love with his wife and had to tell his best friend that, hey, man, I fell in love with your wife and then and she was his muse. So they break up. So Joel tries to commit suicide a couple of times because he's super depressed. The guy and his
wife don't work out. They they part, he hooks back up with her, and that's his lady, who's his muse for all these songs, and then she became his manager, and the whole first part goes up until when they finally split up after whatever this third album was, it came out the Glasshouses.
She was just tired of the She wasn't really about all that stuff.
But she was certain the Class Houses was the third albums. That's the third album, so she they split up out what was the album? Between Street to the second Street?
Thank You?
So the whole first half, man, it's just amazing, and she's interviewed in this real oh oh my god it is.
It is absolutely fantastic.
So I'll end by saying, because I don't want to extend this Billy Joel.
And so it goes. It is great.
It's a reminder that behind the bright lights and sold out arenas, the piano man's greatest legacy might be how deeply personal and universal his songs remain.
And when you watch it you'll see what I'm talking about.
I gave this thing a b plus I really liked, and.
So it goes, Wow, great stories made you think higher of Billy Joel Man. I always like Billy Joe.
But there's some there's some things in here that are really really sad man.
I mean, you know, you think.
About you know, we talk all the time about how artists are able to take really horrible things and turn them into something amazing. And to me, I mean, there's some there's a bunch of songs, but the Vienna one is the is the worst. The Vienna because because when I heard Vienna, my idea of what Vienna means is entirely different than what what Billy Joel saw when he wrote that. Because Vienna plays like, you know, something about
young man. So it's almost a song about somebody young, Slow down, young man, and you know, because Vienna's waiting for you, like at some point. I took it to mean that, like, at some point you're gonna grow old in your age and this this part of your life is waiting for you.
That's not what Vienna's about. Look, look, Shane, that's not it.
Vienna is about a guy who never got the love from his dad up until the day his father passed and always wanted his father's love, only to find out that his father was living with another family, loving love, getting giving love to another child that wasn't him in Vienna, who Like I was sitting there when he when he told that story, I was like, wait, what does happen?
Wow, that's not what I thought this was.
But yes, so Billy jo w and Sale goes man, it's gonna be debuting this weekend on HBO Max. I would highly recommend you check that out