this is the time
I used to love Billy Joel. He was the first non-classical music I was introduced to after the Beach Boys, and I bought every album and learned every word. Billy Joel got me through several mid-teen years, before the inevitable late-teen switch to the Indigo Girls and Ani Difranco. I would play Vienna and rewind the tape and play it again and repeat.I would request If I Only Had the Words from a local radio station call-in show (I think it was about a red headed boy named Matt), and blast Movin’ Out in Jenifer Smtih’s car when she first got her license. Laura and I put An Innocent Man – and nothing else, to make the point extra clear – on a cassette that we sent to the camp counselor she had a crush on. New York State of Mind was my first answering machine message in college. And do you remember that feeling of a song you loved when you were fourteen?
That feeling is the feeling I get when I get off an airplane somewhere far away. It’s the feeling I think some people get when they bike a hundred miles or close a real estate deal. It’s almost like being in love. It’s probably some of the same chemicals. It’s the sort of feeling people fuck up their whole lives for.
So this morning I decided, after a ten year hiatus, to Bring Billy Back. I came across his name in a New York Times article and now, a few clicks later, I have Travelin Prayer and Summer Highland Falls and You May Be Right looping in my ears.
My life in Portland needs a little Billy. First it needed calm, and then it needed roots, and now it needs some volume. Otherwise every email from some friend headed for a foreign country is going to send me spiraling, the way one did earlier this week. This is what I’ve picked for right now, I remind myself, and so I might as well Do It. I’ve been doing a lot of coasting lately, and it doesn’t much suit me. Maybe I just need a new soundtrack.
posted by tortaluga @ 12:37 PM
6 Comments:
After Abbington, PA and NYC, Australia, Costa Rica, The Netherlands, The Balkans, Canada and god knows how many other places, I should think that your own house in your own city way up there in Portland, OR is as foreign a country as any other.
Good luck exploring it.
My mother is in mongolia right now. I am almost putrid with envy. On the other hand, the northwest is beautiful in the summertime.
I still think of you (and all of us) whenever I hear Billy Joel. He was a huge part of our musical upbringing. That NY Times made me think of him fondly as well, whereas I usually judge him harshly for not having created any memorable songs in the last -- fifteen? twenty? -- years.
- BLD
BLD, I don't know about the last fifteen years, but twenty is too much. The River of Dreams (1993) is memorable and, pertinently, its lyrics (religious overtones aside) apply to Tortugala's continuing quest as a "searcher for something." I, too, find myself on that journey and, like the singer, "hope it doesn't take the rest of my life." Unrelatedly, Tortugala, did you know that the NY Times was about to do a front page (Arts section) article on Billy Joel's life and career??
Article.
Old topic
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