Essay: My Favorite Song By A Singer A Lot Of People Hate

“What’s your favorite Billy Joel song?” my friend Amy asked me late one night. We had just journeyed together down a YouTube rabbit hole of cheesy ’80s music videos and landed on Joel’s “Keepin’ The Faith,” which we agreed was not only a great song but also a wonderfully terrible video. The video had been made at the height of Joel’s career, at the one and only moment in time when this guy could totally get away with dancing in a Hawaiian shirt around a courtroom with a goofy judge.

Amy’s question made me gasp with excitement. As a lifelong Billy Joel fan, surely this would be an easy question to answer. But as we traded hyperlinked titles in that little message box, I discovered that no singular song gave me peak Billy Joel ecstasy. But how could this be? I thought. I’ve loved Billy Joel since I was a little kid, when my brothers and I made a home video of the three of us singing “We Didn’t Start The Fire” in our living room. (The lip synching was a little ambitious for us.) I used to dance around the house to my mom’s cassette tape of The Bridge; I know it’s considered nowhere near his best, but I think that was the first album I ever knew in order. Billy Joel’s music, honest and catchy and so very Eighties, is like comfort food to me. So how come none of the songs I liked the most jumped out as my favorite? I’m not talking about “the best” — we’re playing pure, emotional favorites here. Are they all just that good? Or are they all in some way mediocre, and I just love Billy Joel as a pop culture icon of my formative years? Let’s examine a sampling of contenders, excepting everything after 1995 (sorry, Billy).

“Movin’ Out” — It’s like three and a half minutes of some guy snapping his gum and popping his collar outside a deli. Pro: Pure storytelling gold. Certainly enough to build a Broadway musical around. Con: “ack ack ack ack ack!” Bonus: the line “Who needs a house out in Hackensack? Is that all you get for your money?” definitely planted the first seed in my mind of disdain for New Jersey.

“Big Shot” — Elaine’s, Dom Perignon, Halston — this awesomely mean takedown of a poseur girlfriend drops all kinds of ’80s names. I know it’s not about Christie Brinkley, but I love the idea of whatever model he was dating all coked out and schmoozing at a party while Billy is fuming in the corner and jotting lines down on a cocktail napkin.

“Honesty” — In the company of so much ’80s soft rock, this song was at great risk of turning out unbearably corny. Instead, it is a lonely famous person’s angry yet vulnerable plea for genuineness, as well as the song that taught a million aspiring singers the importance of breath control. Still, I only need to hear it once every seven to ten years.

“New York State of Mind” and “A Bottle of Red, A Bottle of White” — meh.

“Piano Man” — Awful. Hate it. Don’t @ me.

“Allentown” and “Don’t Ask Me Why” — these were the only two songs on Joel’s “Greatest Hits” album I had never heard when I bought it, so for a long time, I couldn’t get enough of them. Can you imagine the joy of discovering two NEW classic Billy Joel songs? But upon further reflection, they’re both catchy but not outstanding. I dig the industrial sound effects in “Allentown,” though.

“Matter of Trust” — I listened to The Bridge so many times as a child that I came up with my own entire musical based on its songs. (It was about a New York musician who falls in love with a beautiful woman far too good for him. Later they get divorced. I was very creative.) But outside of nostalgia, I think “Matter of Trust” is the only really good song on the album. God, it’s good. This one might be my favorite.

But wait — “Big Man on Mulberry Street” — I must say this line is fantastic: “Sometimes I panic; what if nobody finds out who I am?”

“You May Be Right” — This has all the components of a perfect Billy Joel song: it’s catchy as hell; it holds up after three decades; it’s incredibly specific while capturing the universal; it has both guitar and sax solos. But despite even its inherent karaoke potential, it never makes me squeal, “I love this song!!” It’s more like I nod enthusiastically along and let a few sung words escape when I hear it on the radio. If I’ve had a couple of drinks I might toss my hair around.

“The Longest Time” — This is a great contender for favorite Billy Joel song, if only because it must have been incredibly risky to release as contender for hit pop single. It sounds like nothing else put out between the ’80s and 1958. I respect the chance he took on that one. Also, it has always made me wish I was in an a capella group. I wanna be the one that goes, “a-WOO-oo-oo-oo!”

“Only The Good Die Young” — This song taught me more about Catholicism than however many years of catechism I went to.

“Tell Her About It” — Absolute perfection: blasting horns, chorus echoes. But my enthusiasm remains tempered. Also, I know it’s supposed to be the words of a well-meaning friend, but let’s be honest: it’s straight from the yenta’s mouth.

“Just The Way You Are” — Despite the corny Wurlitzer, the sax, and the ethereal background vocals, I shamelessly love this song. It’s like a hug. It’s an assurance of a continuing love and acceptance of an imperfect person: “I don’t want clever conversation — you never have to work that hard,” Joel sings. “I just want someone that I can talk to.” Maybe that’s condescending? Or maybe it’s exactly how I feel when a friend I haven’t seen in awhile and I end up talking for 45 minutes about shampoo. It just doesn’t matter, you know?

“It’s Still Rock ’n’ Roll To Me” — This song is the musical equivalent of sunglasses and a black leather jacket. I’ve never really gotten it — is he supposed to be two people talking to each other? And one is teaching the other one how to be cool, but what he doesn’t know is that the other one already IS cool, just the way he is?

“She’s Always A Woman To Me” and “She’s Got A Way” — The first one’s better than the second one.

“We Didn’t Start The Fire” — Billy Joel as the cool social studies teach. Now THIS is karaoke material.

“Keepin’ The Faith” — At the time of my Gchat convo with Amy, I said that I thought this might be my favorite. That can’t be, I thought, though. Really, Jenna,“Keepin’ The Faith”? But really, it’s a pretty great tune: It’s the perfect summer song; it has swagger; and it mixes an undeniably chilled-out sound with sharp jolts of profundity (“Gonna listen to my 45s/Ain’t it wonderful to be alive/when the rock and roll plays?”; “The ‘good old days’ weren’t always good/and tomorrow ain’t as bad as it seems”; “Now I’m goin’ outside to have an ice-cold beer in the shade”) And don’t forget about that video! I think the synthesis of those elements cement this song as a definite fave.

“Uptown Girl” — No, no no — now THIS must be my Favorite Billy Joel Song, for all the reasons I cannot explain, which may be the most important. I just really, really love it. It has a ridiculous video and the lyrics are Billy Joel’s least deep, least original. Yet every time I hear it, even after thirty years, I still have to blast it. I have to sing along. And I can hardly keep myself from dancing to it. Maybe it’s the singalong chorus backups. Maybe it’s the pounding, incessant drum beat. Maybe it’s the video’s portrayal of Christie Brinkley as The Ultimate, with her long legs and tanned skin and perfectly wavy hair under that impossibly wide-brimmed hat, which infiltrated my idea of the feminine ideal at the exact age that that idea was forming.

But many of the other songs on this list have the same or similar elements, so maybe it’s just something totally unsayable. I don’t know what makes this song different from any other Billy Joel song, or any pop song in general. But perhaps that’s what makes a favorite — not perfect — song: that ineffable thing that bypasses the brain and goes straight to the gut. The serendipitous union of nostalgia, intellectual engagement and handclaps.

For me, apparently, that’s “Uptown Girl.” But for you, I dunno, maybe it’s “Piano Man.” No judgment.