Why You Need To Watch The Billy Joel Documentary

Trust Me On This

There are few things I watch on tv that I enjoy as much as I did the Billy Joel documentary. Despite the two and a half hour run time for each of the past two Friday nights, I found myself riveted. I didn’t even glance at my phone, which is unusual for me- if there were trolls running amok on my Facebook page Thoughts From Aisle 4, so be it.

My love affair with Billy Joel’s music began in 1977 when I was around 13 or 14. My brother (may he rest in peace) brought home The Stranger album and said I needed to listen to it. That was it- I was hooked. Even my father, who loved to say that no good music was written after 1950, was impressed with the song, “I Love You Just The Way You Are.” Growing up on Long Island, it was kind of a mandate that you were a Billy Joel fan, just like if you were from New Jersey you had to love Bruce Springsteen. (I’m a fan of his too, but not in the same way. Having said that, man does he put on a fabulous concert.)

Having taken ten years of classical piano lessons, I could hear the classical influences in Billy’s music. But it was often his lyrics that got me- real, angsty, varied, original.

I probably saw Billy in concert 8 or 9 times, including in Boston with my brother in the early 80’s. I also saw him at Nassau Coliseum when I was hugely pregnant with my first son- the guy who showed me to my seat seemed concerned that I might deliver then and there, even asking me when I was due. I could feel my baby moving during the concert and I imagined he might be a musical child. Sadly, he died when he was only ten days old, but I was always glad that we sort of got to experience Billy Joel together.

Most recently, I saw Billy twice during his residency at Madison Square Garden. One of those times he performed with Itzhak Perlman, which was music heaven. I’m regretting that I didn’t go more, and if he ever performs again, I will be there. I pretty much know every word to every song that he sings, as does everyone else in the audience.

I thought I knew a lot about Billy Joel, and I did. How he grew up in Hicksville, Long Island, how is dad left the family after his parents divorced when he was young, how his half-brother is a famous conductor in Europe, his four marriages, three daughters, etc.

But there was also a lot that I didn’t know. During the second part of the documentary, Billy talked about how his grandfather Karl Joel had a very successful clothing manufacturing company in Nuremberg, Germany. But when Hitler came to power in 1933, things got bad for his family. His father was one of four Jews in his class, and they were required to sit separately, until he was no longer even allowed to go to school. The family was forced to “sell” their business to a non-Jew for pennies on the dollar. Pennies they didn’t even receive. But they were lucky because they were able to flee the country, ultimately emigrating to the U.S. Other family members were not so lucky- his aunt, uncle, and cousins were on the Voyage of the Damned – the MS St. Louis, a German ocean liner carrying Jewish refugees in 1939 that was denied entry into Cuba and later the United States and Canada, forcing them to return to Germany. They were all murdered in Auschwitz, as were members of my own family, including my father’s father. By the way, after the Joels were forced out of their business, the company started manufacturing the striped outfits concentration camp prisoners wore.

Billy Joel is rarely political, acknowledging that people attend concerts to escape. But after the Charlottesville incident in August 2017, where white supremacists marched through the streets chanting “Jews will not replace us” he could no longer stay silent. Joel wore a yellow Star of David on his jacket during his next concerts, the same type German Jews (and Jews in countries the Nazi’s occupied) were mandated to wear during Hitler’s reign. He also condemned Trump for calling the supremacists, “fine people” saying “He should’ve come out and said, ‘Those are bad people.’ There is no qualifying it. The Nazis are not good people. Period. And I was very angry, and I had to do something. but I didn’t get up on a soapbox on stage and say, ‘This is wrong,’ so I wore the star. But basically to say, no matter what, I will always be a Jew.” Just when I thought I couldn’t love Billy more.

I knew Billy was Jewish, but had grown up in an Italian neighborhood and was as non-observant as one could get. But yet, he is as proudly Jewish as the most Orthodox Jews I know.

Despite the fame and fortune, Billy’s life hasn’t been an easy one. His mother suffered from mental health issues, undoubtedly made worse by having to be a single parent. Billy himself seems to have struggled with mental health issues and turned to alcohol.

But the music, ah the music. So many incredible songs, so many albums- all different, all amazing. Both his parents were musical- they met while in college when they both performed in a Gilbert and Sullivan production. His father was a classical pianist. Billy says he doesn’t know what he would have been if he hadn’t become a musician- the answer seems apparent. The music runs so deep in his DNA that it would not have been possible for him to be anything else.

During the next to last scene of the documentary, Billy plays “Piano Man” at MSG. And then it shows him as a young man, playing the same song. The passage of time, the twists and turns his life has taken, yet through it all he has been and will always be The Piano Man. I found it so poignant that I started to cry. (I think my husband did too.)

I hope that Billy Joel knows how much he has meant to so many of us. I hope he has a lot more years left on this earth. I hope he finds the peace he’s been searching for. And I want to thank him from the bottom of my heart for his music, which has made me so incredibly happy.