Billy Joel – Think Bensonium

Day 363: Travelin’ Prayer, Billy Joel

Roderick Benson — Wed, 17 Mar 2021 00:00:12 +0000

Countdown to the year anniversary of Covid Island Discs T -4

The opening song on Billy Joel’s Piano Man album was called Travelin’ Prayer. This is a particularly interesting song musically because it begins with a snare drum and piano and slowly builds with a new musical instrument being added from verse to verse. I really like the banjo in this song. Banjos of course very rarely make an appearance in a musical arrangement but in this song Joel very clever weaves the banjo and the piano together in a very fast melody song bursting with musical character and life. Another clever addition is when the violin enters the fray. I think the tempo in this live recording of the song is even faster than the original album track which is pretty impressive as the original recording was extremely fast.

Live Recording of Travelin’ Prayer

Album Recording of Travelin’ Prayer

Day 347: Goodnight Siagon, Billy Joel

Roderick Benson — Tue, 02 Mar 2021 00:00:26 +0000

So yesterday I posted my first Doors hit “Riders on the Storm”. Today’s song, “Goodnight Siagon” by Billy Joel mentions the Doors in its lyric: “We passed the hash pipe and played our Doors tapes and it was dark so dark at night.” Another song about the terrible human cost of the Vietnam war.

Day 301: We didn’t start the fire, Billy Joel

Roderick Benson — Fri, 15 Jan 2021 00:00:00 +0000

This song seems strangely appropriate to finish off this week given the incredible scenes we experienced last week with the storming of the US Capitol building by Trump insurrectionists. We are certainly living in history making times but as Billy Joel says “we didn’t start the fire, but we’re trying to fight it” with pretty much zero success. This song, like American Pie is an extended lyrical piece containing the cataloguing of world history verse by verse.

Day 297: Honesty, Billy Joel

Roderick Benson — Mon, 11 Jan 2021 00:00:00 +0000

A very pretty and very wise song by Billy Joel. Sadly the sound quality of the video is a little poor.

Day 144: Italian Restaurant, Billy Joel

Roderick Benson — Thu, 10 Sep 2020 13:28:38 +0000

“A bottle of red, a bottle of white, all depends upon your appetite”. As I have said in other posts I like to listen to the lyrics of a song. This three part song by Billy Joel tell the story of Brenda and Eddie as he imagines telling their story to a long-lost friend in an Italian restaurant. As usual, he also makes the piano sing. The Sax is also awesome

Day 4: Piano Man by Billy Joel

Rbenson — Sat, 15 Aug 2020 20:38:15 +0000

OK so yesterday I said we were required to write about two songs in our high school English assignment. The second song I chose (a 70s classic) was Piano Man on account of the clever line:

“They’re sharing a drink they called loneliness, but it is better than drinking alone”

I guess this is a particularly apt line given the current challenge we are facing. As this song perceptively points out it is possible to be physically with people and yet relationally alone. Yet if this is true then the reverse must also apply. It is possible to by physically separated from people and yet relationally together, especially with the advent of modern social media. I guess this is what we need to achieve over the next few months as we get to grips with this virus. We need to remain socially united while physically distant if we are going to work together to defeat this threat.