I was going to make a joke about how I had a crappy day today and now, mutheragod, I've got a Billy Joel song stuck in my head. But, despite that fact that I do indeed have a Billy Joel song stuck in my head, I am not going to slag off the alcoholic former-supermodel-boinking catchy-song-writing Mr Joel.
Instead I'm going to tell you a pointless anecdote, since we haven't done one of those for a while. According to wikipedia, which is never wrong, "only the good die young" was a single in 1978, but I can tell you, as old people who remember 30 years ago like it was yesterday even though they have no idea what they did three days ago always will, that in the fall of 1979, in my senior year of high school, you could certainly still turn on your radio and hear that song played often enough. My friend LL (not to be confused with blog-favorite L, who was however our good buddy) and I liked that song. We particularly liked to sing that song at the top of our lungs in her car, which was an AMC Pacer. (If I were to tell you the other distinguishing facet of that car, I would out my identity to anyone who ever knew us in the late 70s, because it was...unique. So I won't.)
So, anyhow, LL and I would sing that song with gusto and enjoy, especially, the part about Catholic girls starting much too late, which may have been true in one of our cases and untrue in another, and we needn't be coy about who was who, huh? And we would sing that song on our way to several of our favorite places to frequent, but especially, a particular Pizza Hut that for awhile in 1979 was the first stop after school. Why? Because of the manager.
Mr Pizza Hut Manager was perhaps 25, from South Carolina--and thus possessed of what was to us an alluring and fascinating accent, good-looking, charming, flirtatious, and best of all, married, and thus apparently safe. We would go in and practice our own flirting-with-an-older-man, assured in our still innocent little hearts that nothing serious, or bad, would or could ever come from it.
Does that sound like I'm leading up to something bad happening? Nah. Not to us, anyway. Pizza Hut wasn't so lucky. Mr Pizza Hut Manager emptied out all the cash and disappeared into the sunset one night.
I'll never hear that Billy Joel song without thinking briefly of him.
You've heard I run with a dangerous crowd
We ain't too pretty, we ain't too proud
We might be laughing a bit too loud
Aww, but that never hurt no one...
xoxo
12 comments:
1) I *liked* Billy Joel! No accounting for taste, is there?
2) Maybe your exercises pushed the poor Pizza Hut guy around the bend and he had to flee, keeping his morals intact (apart from the little detail of boosting the day's take).
2.) Well, he had to fund his entrance to the seminary *somehow*, right? :-)
1.) Srsly. I feel Mr Joel is unfairly maligned. He wrote some very catchy pop songs. There is nothing wrong with a good, catchy pop song.
Billy Joel is towards the top of the list of mid-70's hitmakers that turned me towards punk rock.
Just sayin' ;-)
Though I have my own tales about an... adventurous... (yeah, that's it) high school girl with an AMC Pacer.
If I'd only known of the Pacer/"adventure" correlation 30 years ago!
Or more than 25 years ago, when the last, unlamented Pacer probably hit the car crusher. Though I was actually noticing just the other day how the back of some of the smaller Subarus bear more than a passing resemblance to the Pacer fishbowl.
Perhaps I should work on updating the data on that correlation?
Yes, yes, we know that you never ever listened to anything embarrassing, cheesy, or lacking in street cred.
I, however, have so much damn street cred of my own that I can embrace Billy Joel songs. :-PPPPPP
Hey, it wasn't the lack of street cred, it was the part where all those sappy songs a) had no balls and b) made me want to barf.
I'm not just talking Billy Joel here, I'm talking the whole line of made for corporate radio, inoffensive (well, except to your ears), lame pap that pushed lots of people into the arms of Punk.
I was going to use VH-1's #1 Most Awesomely Bad Song Ever: "We Built This City on Rock and Roll" as an example of the nadir of that sort of music, but, as it turns out, it's from 1985 so entirely the wrong era (and entirely post-Punk).
It still sucks in its own special way, though.
Hey, you've seen my music collection. I like lots of Pop music that was at the top of the charts (well, some chart somewhere in some remote decade) but not those mid-70s Hot 100 charts.
God, apparently Peter Wolf got a songwriting credit on WBTCORAR. What the hell was he on at the time? (Actually, at that particular time, probably a lot of stuff). Though Bernie Taupin gets the lead credit, which is much less of a surprise.
God, this is awful.
I've now got both "Only The Good Die Young" and "We Built This City" stuck in my head. Talk about persistent earworms.
I think I'm going to have to crank The Ramones up to 11 to knock them out of there. This could cause serious issues with the neighbors...
P.S. "Only The Good Die Young" was not on VH-1's top 50 awesomely bad song list... but "We Didn't Start The Fire" sure was. :-P
That's because Only the Good Die Young is not a bad song, never mind awesomely bad. Get with the program.
And any Ramones song (and you know I love the Ramones) is just a pop song played at double speed. Though the Ramones never sang about Catholic high school girls, more's the pity.
Why do you think I picked The Ramones? :-)
Half their songs are early '60's girl group pop songs with the varispeed cranked to the max. I said I liked pop music... I just don't like lame pop music.
You don't think Sheena was a Catholic high school girl. I think the lyrical subtext makes it abundantly clear... ;-)
Though in searching for more explicit Catholic girl Ramones references I've just discovered a punk-pop semi-Ramone-ish group from New Jersey called The Catholic Girls that apparently perform in matching plaid skirt outfits... This will definitely require further aural investigation.
One more thing to say, then I am over n'out on this topic, having beaten it like the proverbial dead horse.
Mr Indemnity? Billy Joel should be your effen hero, man. A Jewish guy from the Middle Atlantic who *doesn't* look like Paul Newman, yet a.) marries a supermodel for wife #2 then b.) marries a woman thirty+ years younger than him for wife #3, with his daughter who's only four years younger than the bride as maid of honor? Obviously he the man and you should take lessons :-PPPPPPP
And since I the woman and am draped in street cred, I get to sing and love any Billy Joel songs I want any time I want, no irony required. Game, set, match. Case closed.
hahaha
You're saying I don't look like Paul Newman??????
Now I'm crushed...
(Bill Joel married a woman 30+ years younger???? I actually had no idea. Maybe she got a pre-will????)
(I don't think I knew he was Jewish, either!)
As far as Billy J is concerned, I give him a free pass for Allentown and A Minor Variation. Yeah, albums like Piano Man, The Stranger and 52nd Street are chock full of deserve-to-be-guilty can't-bring-myself-anymore to say pleasure, but I do like Rosalinda's Eyes and Summer, Highland Falls, and there's no explanation to be given for those.
The SNL skits of him drunk-driving across Long Island validate a certain portion of it, too.
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