I love Billy Joel. I will not apologize, for I do not feel shame. When it comes to Billy Joel, I am shameless. I love his attic songs and his streetlife serenades; I love his cold spring harbors and his Summer highland falls. I love him from Oyster Bay Long Island to Soviet Leningrad to the fuckin’ Catalina Wine Mixer. I’ve loved him for the longest time, just the way he is, and I will love him until the lights go out on Broadway and the church strings him up for what he did. He has been a part of my life since before I was even born. My dad sang “She’s Got a Way” to my mom at their wedding (where “The Mexican Connection” was also their recessional). I knew the lyrics to “Uptown Girl” before I knew the National Anthem. He is, for me, something of a constant—the soundtrack of time itself—the author of some of my earliest, and fondest musical memories. I truly don’t care what anyone thinks, and I never have. I love Billy Joel.
With all that said, I know it may still seem a strange choice to use my bimonthly slot here with the Heavy Feather Review to write about Joel Death, a singular, and as far as I know unattainable literary artifact—a deck of 88 ornamental cards (one for each key of the piano; each one a key to the piano man) that I happened upon in the dusty back corner of a Lawrence, Kansas Salvation Army (nestled unassumingly between a World’s Greatest Stepdad mug and a copy of The Teachings of Don Juan by Carlos Castaneda). But with publisher Inside the Castle’s 10-year anniversary celebration fast approaching, the unearthing of this lost treasure from the expanded field felt like more than just coincidence. It felt like fate. And the pull to regale you with the story of its discovery was simply too strong to ignore. Besides, if I don’t tell it, I fear no one will.
—
Much to my surprise, when I brought my purchase to checkout, the man behind the counter refused to ring me up. I tried to haggle—offering first everything I had in my wallet—and then to go hit an ATM—and finally, desperately, to trade the very clothes on my back and my car parked outside—but he wouldn’t budge. Though he kindly complimented my keen thrifter’s eye, he explained in no uncertain terms that the item had been shelved by mistake, and was simply not for sale. He then asked, with something of a twinkle in his eye, if I might do him a favor and return it to the stockroom, as he was alone in the store and could not leave the front desk unattended.
I won’t lie to you dear readers, in this moment I briefly contemplated outright theft—either sprinting for the exit with my bounty in hand, or acquiescing to his request only to pocket and abscond with it in secret. But for whatever reason (most likely cowardice), and despite my aforementioned profound love for all things Billy Joel, I chose to comply, and so dutifully made my way through the dingy double doors at the back of the store.
It was then I heard the click of the lock behind me, despite those doors being free swinging and lockless mere moments ago.
It was then I was plunged into impenetrable darkness, despite both doors having clear porthole windows one would have expected to allow light in from the other room.
It was then, some 50 yards away, that an overhead spotlight of no discernible origin—a luminous shaft that reached far beyond any preexisting perception I had of the building’s ceiling—that seemed to descend from the very heavens—pierced the dark like an Old Testament pillar of fire, revealing a hooded figure seated at a jet black baby grand.
As I made my way toward the piano—for what else could I now reasonably do?—crossing a shadowland distance that, again, seemed to stretch far beyond any previous notion I had of the building’s interior dimensions, I saw that the figure was not, in fact, seated at the keys, but rather on the far side of the closed lid, as though it were a table, and that an empty seat awaited me at the near. Despite this, the closer I got, the more clearly I could hear the exquisite Steinway playing, of its own accord, an eerily somber series of variations on Joel’s 1982 organ synthony, “Pressure.”
“Who are you?” I asked as I finally crossed into the light and claimed my seat. “What is all this?”
“I am The Stranger” he replied. “And you are but an innocent man caught in a river of dreams.”
“What … what does that mean?” I asked, suddenly very aware of the vastness of the void that now surrounded me.
“Draw your hand” he said, “and all will be revealed.”
I’d almost forgotten the cards were still in my white knuckled grasp, but at his direction I placed the deck atop the piano, cut once, and drew.
The first card depicted an ancient, opulent skyline—a cloud-draped mountain metropolis of pagodas and onion domes—etched in a kind of shimmery, shaded relief, as though the cards themselves had been gilded with leafy gold:
The Seeker
As a young man,
Billy Joel played
piano on “Leader
of the Pack,” the
breakout hit from
60s girl group
The Shangri-Las.
“Ah, The Seeker,” The Stranger said with an air of approval. “This is an auspicious beginning. The cards have found you worthy. Your presence here is neither fantasy, nor delusion. Jo-El has led you here for a reason.”
“I … I am a fan” I said with a nervous collar tug.
“Draw again,” The Stranger replied.
My second card, styled in the same aurum silhouette, showed a hulking warrior atop a sinewy, armored steed, charging with sword drawn across the steppes of Central Asia:
The Conqueror
Before beginning his
solo career, Billy Joel
played organ in a metal
two-piece called Attila.
They released one album
before Joel ran off with
his bandmate’s wife.
“The Seeker followed by The Conqueror!” The Stranger marveled. “A rare combination indeed. You have braved many trials to be here—the mountains of faith, the valley of fear, the jungle of doubt, the desert of truth. You’ve conquered them all, and Jo-El has whispered his traveling prayer for you every step of the way.”
“I love that track!” I agreed, sharing his enthusiasm. “The banjo’s such a nice touch.”
“Yes, I like the banjo too. Now draw.”
The Drowning Man
In 1970 Billy Joel
attempted to kill
himself by drinking
half a bottle of
furniture polish.
But he lived!
“Ah yes,” The Stranger remarked with knowing gravity as I turned over a card bearing a rudimentary image of a bottle marked with a glittery leering skull. “This was a dark day for Jo-El. I don’t know why he goes to extremes, but as he teaches us in the great proverbs of Glass Houses, ‘Every drunk must have his drink. Don’t wait for answers. Just take your chances.’”
“I …”
“Don’t ask me why.”
“But I don’t understand.”
“Draw.”
The Champion
Billy Joel’s 1978
album 52nd Street
became the first album
ever released commercially
on CD, on its way to
winning the Grammy for
Album of the Year.
“Behold!” The Stranger nearly shouted, leaping from his seat and pointing a gnarled finger at the card displaying Billy Joel’s golden Grammy statuette. “You have drawn the greatest card in the deck!”
“Yeah! That’s a great record. Did you know that’s Freddie Hubbard playing the trumpet on ‘Zanzibar’?”
“Yes. Freddie’s a dear friend.”
“So cool.”
“Could it … could it truly be that you are him?” The Stranger asks, his voice catching with emotion. “The disciple long-prophesied?”
“Uhhh …”
“DRAW!”
The Peacemaker
Billy Joel’s 1987 USSR
live album Kohuept
single-handedly ended
the Cold War, and
directly led to the
fall of the Berlin Wall.
“YES!!!” The Stranger cried, pounding his fists on the piano lid in ecstasy. “I’ve waited two thousand years for the believer who might draw these cards back-to-back. Surely you are the chosen one, come to set me free!”
“Uhhh … I’m not sure about that whole ‘ending the Cold War’ thing” I replied, glancing nervously at the embossed hammer and sickle I’d just overturned.
“OK. Yes. ‘Single-handedly’ might be a bit strong” he offered with a haughty, but good-natured chuckle. “It does take two hands to play the piano after all. And we would be remiss in discounting the impact of Sylvester Stallone’s speech from the end of Rocky IV. But still, that small contribution obviously pales in comparison to the monumental feat of diplomacy accomplished by the great Jo-El. I must say, I would not have expected his chosen prophet to question him in this manner.”
“Uh … sorry?”
“It’s fine” he said, crossing his arms in a huff. “Draw.”
The Critic
In a 2002 essay,
pop culture writer
Chuck Klosterman
observed that Billy Joel
is terminally uncool and
will never receive the
respect he openly craves.
It is Klosterman’s
contention that this very
unhappiness is what
informs Joel’s best songs,
which he subsequently
likened to suicide notes.
The Stranger, so exuberant moments ago, grew cold at the flip of this card, which featured a shiny reproduction of Klosterman’s beloved collection Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs.
“That’s a pretty cool book” I gingerly ventured after a long, uncomfortable silence.
“Cool?!” The Stranger muttered, clearly pouting despite his face being shrouded in black. “You know who’s cool? Jo-El is cool. Coolest guy I know, that’s for sure. He dates supermodels. He smokes cigarettes. He wears, like, so many leather jackets. Who the hell is Chuck Klosterman anyway? What’s he ever done? Little shit.”
“Uh … yeah. I mean, I think the piece is pretty positive overall. Kind of helped restart the conversation a little. Like, Billy Joel may not be ‘cool,’ but I definitely think he’s more critically respected now. Just a few years ago Pitchfork gave The Stranger an 8.5.”
“8.5!” he scoffed, with a near-audible eyeroll. “That album is a perfect 10! An 11! An infinity! To hell with your Pitchfork. Hipster dicks. Jo-El doesn’t need their backhanded pity cred. He is a living god. He laughs with the sinners, and cries with the saints. He will outlast you all!”
“Hey! I’m on your side!”
“Whatever. Draw.”
The Sisyphean
Billy Joel has infamously
not recorded a new
album in over 30 years,
choosing instead to tour
relentlessly on his
back catalogue, including
a years-long residency at
Madison Square Garden.
“NO!!!” The Stranger bellowed, his voice suddenly amplified into the quadrophonic self-harmonizing of “The Longest Time” at the sight of this card, depicting a man bent double, struggling to push a grand piano up a steep mountainside.
“I … I’m sorry” I said, leaping from my seat in terror.
“You are no prophet of Jo-El!” he screamed, his bony maestro’s fingers—each now grotesquely elongated by third and fourth knuckles—sweeping the cards to the ground in a rage; his hood flying backward to reveal a familiar, yet otherworldly visage. It was Billy Joel to be sure—I’d suspected as much for a while—but not the jovially bald, goateed Joel of today. Rather, I found myself face-to-face with a grim, hollow-eyed Piano Man masque, as though that album’s haunting cover image had itself aged and decayed across two misery-doomed millennia, desperately pursuing a death that would not come.
With the player piano “Pressure” intensifying to concussive volumes, I stepped back and looked at Billy Joel’s many lives scattered all around—cards recounting his failed marriages to both Elizabeth Weber (the subject of “Just the Way You Are”) and Christie Brinkley (the subject of “Uptown Girl”); cards touting his voiceover work in the animated film Oliver & Company and his Broadway musical Movin’ Out with choreographer Twyla Tharp; cards celebrating his rare single-artist tribute episode of Glee, and the updated rendition of “We Didn’t Start the Fire” recorded by Fall Out Boy. Even a card about Chainsaw, the longtime roadie he sometimes allows to perform “Highway to Hell” at his concerts for thousands of captive fans. It was fascinating, seeing all these accomplishments side-by-side—Joel’s maps and his medals laid out on the floor—and realizing in that moment just how little they truly amounted to; just how mediocre even the objective pinnacle of success can actually be. I would describe the aggregate effect as something like anti-endearing. It was all just … so … lame!
“I think I’d like to leave” I said, backing away more, though toward what I still didn’t know. “Keep the cards. I don’t want them anymore.”
“Impostor!” The Stranger shouted, his jaw unhinging to a cavernous vortex lined with crowded, jagged piano key teeth.
“Let me go!”
“Infidel! Agent of Christgau!” he roared, a bleach white asp slithering out from his right eye socket with an evil hiss before disappearing up his left nostril. “You are not here to love Billy, but to defame him!”
“Christgau got it right” I fire back. “Billy Joel is a hack. The fact that he even cares what rock critics think only proves them right. He’s not good enough. He’ll never be good enough.”
“He is in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame!”
“Yeah. And so are The Eagles. And James Taylor. Fucking Genesis. Who cares? It doesn’t mean shit.”
“He’s the third highest selling artist of all time!! Behind only Garth Brooks and Elvis!!!”
“Yeah. And Garth did ‘Shameless’ better than Billy ever could. He probably doesn’t even know who Robert Christgau is. Billy wishes he was as cool as Garth Brooks.”
“Blasphemy!”
“Honesty …”
“I …”
“Such a lonely word.”
“I … I feel like a fucking fool.”
“Good” I said. “Use that.”
“But … I’m so tired.”
“From what!?” I demanded, now firmly in control of the situation. “You haven’t written a new song since 1993! You’ve been dining out on ‘Scenes from an Italian Restaurant’ since before I was born! If you want people to respect you, get back to work!!”
“And then they’ll see?” he asked, tears bubbling out his hollow eyes. “Then they’ll see I’m good? Then everybody loves me now?”
“I don’t know, Billy. I really don’t. But we’re always what our situations hand us.”
“Yes …” he sighed, slumping down at the piano, finally defeated. “It’s either sadness … or euphoria.”
“And so it goes” I said.
“And so it goes” he replied, his fingers returning to the keys, and rejoining the dirge-like variation of “Pressure” in progress.
—
I don’t want to give you the wrong impression, dear readers. I still love Billy Joel. Now more than ever. But not for the reasons I once did. For I have peered behind the nylon curtain, and glimpsed the existential burden that accompanies true immortal fame. To be known as Billy Joel—or Jo-El, as I now reverently call him—is known, is to collapse into your own supermassive black hole of self-doubt. To be the background music of so many other peoples’ lives is to never be the star of your own. Ubiquity breeds annihilation. You’re literally everywhere, but there’s always someplace that you’d rather be.
As far as I know, Jo-El still haunts that Salvation Army in Lawrence, and if you make the trek for Inside the Castle’s anniversary event next month, I’d wager Joel Death is still lurking amid its dusty shelves, waiting to impart its cursed wisdom to the next keen-eyed thrifter who dares (maybe in the back, in the discount rack, like another can of beans). Who knows? Maybe someday, someone will even come along—possibly even Yeager or Trefry themselves—to draw that perfect hand that finally sets him free. But until then, tomorrow is today, forever and ever, again and again, and wherever there’s a wedding band or a karaoke bar or a zombie Top 40 station that just won’t die, we’ll hear Jo-El there. Kind of. In the background. While we’re living our own lives. We’ll hear his Diamond-certified suicide notes on perdurable repeat, and we’ll know that he cares. He cares so much, so we don’t have to.
Or, and this is my greatest hope of all, maybe one day he’ll just finally learn to take his own pithy, sage advice. To see the stranger in himself. To love that stranger just the way he is. To not always, and eternally, ask himself why. It’s hard to imagine, after everything I’ve seen, but far be it from me to predict what the future holds. He did royally piss off the Pope that one time—easily the coolest thing he’s ever done—and if someone as terminally uncool as Billy Joel can do that, even once, then surely there’s a chance. Surely, Vienna waits for us all.
Dave Fitzgerald is a writer living and working in Athens, Georgia. He contributes sporadic film criticism to DailyGrindhouse.com and Cinedump.com, and his first novel, Troll, was published in May 2023 by Whiskey Tit Books. He tweets @DFitzgerraldo.
Check out HFR’s book catalog, publicity list, submission manager, and buy merch from our Spring store. Follow us on Instagram and YouTube. Disclosure: HFR is an affiliate of Bookshop.org and we will earn a commission if you click through and make a purchase. Sales from Bookshop.org help support independent bookstores and small presses.
Heavy Feather Review 
Leave a comment