Vienna billy joel movie8/15/2023 ![]() ![]() You'd better cool it off before you burn it out Where's the fire, what's the hurry about? The opening verse …īut then if you're so smart, then tell me It entered my life via my prized Sony dual-cassette, auto-reverse boom box stereo. Vienna was the fifth song on The Stranger. I was voted as “Class Yuppie” (which have had something to do with carrying a briefcase to school every day.)īilly Joel’s album, The Stranger, had been released 8 years earlier, but I heard it for the first time thanks to the Columbia House Music Club (15 cassette tapes for a penny!). I was so intensely driven, my high school classmates created a new category for our Senior yearbook. I wasn’t going to let someone get ahead of me. ![]() I lived life on overdrive, never taking time to rest. I was a wiry, pimple-faced 10th grader brimming with raw ambition and wide-eyed dreams. A nostalgic aura enveloped me as 2022 melded into 1985. The moment those first few G-minor notes and that bluesy melody hit my ear, I was transfixed. It happened again this morning while listening to Sirius Radio. In the blink of an eye a song can transport you to a long-forgotten place. ![]() If you haven’t already, go listen to “Vienna” and the rest of The Stranger. ![]() Billy closes out the track with a chorus, and then the same piano melody that we heard at the start. It adds a certain European quality to the track, while still keeping that oddly romantic mood of the track going. As Billy goes on, his singing gets more and more emotional, specifically on the “You’re right” at the end of the second verse.Īn accordion instrumental plays before the third chorus and it really brings the song together. The track maintains it’s tempo however, and continues to feel as though it’s still a song being sung to one person in particular. Joel’s father explains that although you take the time to learn from the wrong decisions you’ve made, you don’t appreciate what you’ve done right.Īfter the first chorus, the song picks up a bit with more drums coming in. “ Though you can see when you’re wrong/You know you can’t always see when you’re right / You’re right.” These lines resonate with me the most. In the first two verses Billy’s father repeats the importance of taking life slowly and appreciating everything life has to offer. and in this capacity, makes the listener pay close attention to the lyrics of the track. The song has a strong mood of intimacy, almost as if it was made specifically for the person listening to the song. The track begins with a lone piano that incorporates notably romantic trills before the drums come in. The song is from the perspective of Joel’s father, who lived in Vienna and talks Billy through his perspective. The song deals with Billy personifying the city of Vienna as a metaphor for life and taking everything just a bit slower. While I could pick just about any one of these songs to represent this album, my favorite has to be “ Vienna.” Not only does this album still hold up incredibly well for fans of his, but it also contains some of Joel’s most iconic and fantastic songs he’s ever written. In 1977, Billy Joel, one of the greatest pop-rock musicians of the twentieth century, released my favorite of his career: The Stranger. ![]()
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