And even though I know the river is wide
I walk down every evening and I stand on the shore
And try to cross to the opposite side
So I can finally find out what I've been looking for "
(River of Dreams)
Since "River of Dreams" (1993) so for 20 years now, has Billy Joel released any more studio albums. This last provides together with the ingenious Stormfront (1989) and also good The Bridge (1986) the majority of the songs of this third and probably last Greatest Hits collection, plus some singles that have since emerged.
In this final period of his work (you see also my review of Greatest Hits I & II), Joel succeeded to further advance to the pop star and his very different musical influences and thematic manifestations to remain faithful still here and there. Nevertheless predominate especially the quieter and quieter sounds without the instrumental brilliance would suffer.
"Harry Truman, Doris Day, Red China, Johnny Ray
South Pacific, Walter Winchell, Joe DiMaggio
Joe McCarthy, Richard Nixon, Studebaker, Television
North Korea, South Korea, Marilyn Monroe
Rosenbergs, H Bomb, Sugar Ray, Panmunjom
Brando, The King and I, and The Catcher in the Rye
Eisenhower, Vaccine, England's Got a New Queen
Maciano, Liberace, Santayana goodbye
We did not start the fire
It was always burning
Since the world's been turning
We did not start the fire
No we did not light it
But we tried to fight it "
Not only Joel rapid reappraisal of American history between 1949-89, which is known to many as big hit of 1989, has a Super Text; even in his last years, singer-songwriter Joel wrote almost exclusively filigree texts which he combined with a most hypnotic, the theme also tonal contouring / reproducing music. This is particularly evident in pieces such as the darkly rhythmic opulent "Downeaster Alexa", when it comes to the fishermen of Long Iceland, a dying craft and whose music you can literally feel the ups and downs, comings and goings of the waves the boat, the wind whistled, the sails, the tide. At end lines such as "There is not much future for a man who works the sea / But there is not no islands left for islanders like me" runs one then but a shiver down my spine.
"This is the time to remember
'Cause it will not last forever
These are the days to hold on to
'Cause we will not, we'll Although wanna
This is the time,
But time is gonna change
You've Given me the best of you
But now I need the rest of you "
(This is the Time)
The love, the urge and the elegiac are the biggest components that stand out, along with a tremendously simple symbiosis of rock and classical elements. The universality of Joel's voice and preparation is as always incomparable. Actually, it's a long way from the Leonard Cohen cover of "Light as a breeze", a song so full of poetry, blues and portly, economical power to the stormy, sounded gepuschten sound of "I Go to Extremes" - but Joel manages that they have something in common across all Genregrezen that no piece of the collection falls out and instead has each his own authority, because music, text and topic seem to be mutually dependent; in other words, you can hear some point in his songs in genres classify and determine its preferences for sounds and directions, listening instead each song in the language that he speaks.
One of the most intense, while at the same time easiest experiences is the song "And so it goes", which probably could keep every lover once on a sign in the air, with the finish line:
"So I would choose to be with you
That's if the choice were mine to make
But you can make decisions too
And you can have this heart to break "
There are a thousand reasons to listen to good music. Often a CD is an exhilarating, uplifting experience, but rarely it is such a consistently positive, diverse experience, as one would learn little by little in this Greatest Hits album. From ryhthmusgetragenen "Keeping the Faith" on the rousing "Matter of Trust", which like "This is the time" speaks of significant and powerful experiences in love, about the incredibly moving piece of history between the growth in the US and Russia in "Leningrad", the Pops "We did not start the fire," the lilting "I go to extremes", the poem "And so it goes," the two very large pieces "Downeaster Alexa" and "All About Soul" to the "River of Dreams", which somehow the circle with "Keeping the Faith closes" and the three covers of Dylan, Cohen and King it is a rich, moving and sometimes very lyrical story that holds Joel for us. The story of a selection of works that is unparalleled.
"And you're weak and you're harmless
and you're sleeping in your harness
and the wind going wild
in the trees,
and It Is not Exactly prison
but you'll never be forgiven
for whatever you've done
with the keys.
O baby I waited
so long for your kiss
for something to happen,
oh something like this. "