#MicroblogMondays: "This Song"

This past Saturday night, CNN aired an episode of "Extraordinary," an interview series first aired on its short-lived CNN+ streaming network earlier this spring. In it, Fareed Zakaria talked with musician Billy Joel in depth about his life, his music, his influences and more. (A second episode followed, featuring filmmaker Francis Ford Coppola.)  

Dh & I PVRd the episode and watched it on Sunday night instead, because we spent Saturday night at BIL's house, having coffee along with dh & BIL's aunt, two cousins and their husbands, who live nearby. Despite our proximity, our contact with these relatives has been limited over the past 2-3 years because of covid, and it was nice to catch up. 

The older sister/cousin is celebrating her birthday soon and told us she & her husband are going to New York City for a few days -- he's never been, and she managed to snag herself the ultimate birthday present (as if a trip to NYC is not enough...!):  tickets to see Billy Joel at Madison Square Garden, where he's had a monthly "residency" date since January 2014.    

I promptly turned 20 shades of green with envy on the spot. I have scoffed at the idea of  creating a "bucket list" in the past -- but if I had a musical bucket list, seeing Billy Joel (anywhere, but especially at MSG) would be right at the top of the list. I knew his music as far back as 1973's "Piano Man" when I was entering my teens, but "The Stranger" album from 1977 (which I owned) was a mega-hit when I was in high school, and the hits just kept coming after that for the next 20 years. He hasn't recorded a new rock/pop album in almost 30 years (!!), but the body of work he's left is certainly enough of an amazing legacy and, at 73, he's still killing it in concert, at MSG and elsewhere. 

I considered "Just the Way You Are" as the first dance song at our 1985 wedding (didn't everyone then??) but it was already ubiquitous. I eventually settled on the somewhat insipid "You & I" by Crystal Gayle and Eddie Rabbit -- although these days I wish I had gone with my gut and picked "Your Song" by Elton John, or Paul McCartney's "Maybe I'm Amazed" instead, or maybe Sherriff's "When I'm With You," which one of dh's cousins had at her wedding a decade later -- the groom was friends with one of the guys in the band.  

(The first song I remember dh & I ever slow dancing to -- which some might consider to be "our song" -- was a rather depressing rock ballad by a great band from Regina called the Queen City Kids, called "Excitement of Love," based on a true story about two teenagers who, forbidden to continue their relationship, decided to die together by crashing their car into a wall. He died, she lived. The band was pretty big in Canada, the Prairies especially, in the early 1980s -- I had their album -- and they played a social/dance at the residence where both dh & I lived then.  The link here is to a  live version with pretty good sound quality from 1981 that I found on YouTube, which is about the time when Future Dh & I would have been dancing to it. Anyway, I digress.... but it certainly did NOT seem like an appropriate song for a wedding!  lol)  

Your "first dance" song at your wedding is usually considered a decision of great importance -- the "last dance" song, not so much -- at least, I didn't give it any thought or express any preference, and I'm not sure many other brides back then did either (in the days before "bridezilla" became a term -- although I'm sure they existed then too...!). (Perhaps brides today give the matter more thought.) At any rate, the DJ chose the music for us:  it was a Billy Joel song I was familiar with, from the 1983 album "An Innocent Man" (which Billy has described as a "love letter to Christie" -- Brinkley, the supermodel, then his girlfriend and later his wife). I have only grown to love it more as the years have gone by. 

In some ways, it's not exactly what you'd pick for a wedding song -- if you read the lyrics one way, it's about a one-night stand (with the hint of something more). But in some ways, it was perfect for me & dh. When I first met him, I was still smarting from the breakup of my previous relationship. I actually was more interested in his good looking neighbour ;)  but he won me over in the end, simply by being the very nice (and persistent, lol) guy that he was and is. Over the next few years, our relationship went long-distance -- which was very hard in many ways, but made the times we were able to be together (before we finally got married) all the more special. "Tomorrow is a long time away/This night can last forever." Tomorrow is not promised to us. Learning to focus on the good things we have in the here and now, to not worry about the future (too much) or dwell on the things we don't have right now, was a lesson that has been reinforced to us, over and over again, as we've navigated infertility, pregnancy loss, job loss and other life battles together over the past 40 (!) years. 

There are so, so many great Billy Joel songs. But this song -- "This Night" -- is my favourite.  :)   It's a wildly romantic song, with a lush melody based on Piano Sonata No. 8 (Pathetique) by Joel's favourite classical composer, Ludwig van Beethoven; tight 1950s-style doo-wop harmonies that I love; and a killer saxophone solo (ditto). He doesn't often play it live these days -- I've heard him say he finds it hard to reach the higher notes now -- but if I ever do get the chance to see him, I'm thinking of bringing along a sign requesting it, lol (he does sometimes take requests from the audience).  

Do you have a farourite Billy Joel song?  

You can find more of this week's #MicroblogMondays posts here. 

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Live rendition, YouTube video, Madison Square Garden, Feb. 14, 2019:  

(I noticed a few clips for this song from MSG on or around Valentine's Day on various years -- so maybe that's a clue for me as to when I should plan a future trip??) 

"This Night" 

Didn't I say

I wasn't ready for a romance

Didn't we promise

We would only be friends

And so we danced

Though it was only a slow dance

I started breaking my promises

Right there and then

Didn't I swear

There would be no complications

Didn't you want

Someone who's seen it all before

Now that you're here

It's not the same situation

Suddenly I don't remember the rules anymore

This night is mine

It's only you and i

Tomorrow

Is a long time away

This night can last forever

I've been around

Someone like me should know better

Falling in love

Would be the worst thing I could do

Didn't I say

I needed time to forget her

Aren't you running from someone

Who's not over you

How many nights

Have I been lonely without you

I tell myself

How much I really don't care

How many nights

Have I been thinking about you

Wanting to hold you

But knowing you would not be there

This night

You're mine

It's only you and i

I'll tell you

To forget yesterday

This night we are together

This night

Is mine

It's only you and i

Tomorrow

Is such a long time away

This night can last forever

Tomorrow

Is such a long time away

This night can last forever