broadway i saw the empire state lay low life went on beyond the palisades they all bought cadillacs left there long ago to tell the world about the way the light went out to keep the memory alive it s all these human emotions. for some reason we can tap into that as musicians. when we came up with this idea of doing this series of in-depth interviews with really extraordinary people we started thinking about whom we should try to get and whom we should ask. and we thought about the usual political figures, obama, the dali lama. and i come back to the idea of interviewing the person i really wanted to interview, and that was billy joel. and the reason is i ve been in love with his music ever since i was a teenager growing up in india. billy joel has been a rockstar for five decades. today he keeps up his nearly ten-yearlong residency at madison square garden playing the piano and belting out the lyrics that so many fans adore. he s sold more than 150 million reco
be what the words are. right. it s like a nice folk song. she can lead you to love, she can take you or leave you she can ask for the truth, but she ll never believe and she ll take what you give her as long as it s free yeah, she steals like a thief, but she s always a woman to me and then you hear, she s just a complete bitch. and then, and it just does it, wait, wait a minute, it s jarring. and it s, yeah, suddenly, it gets harsh. yeah, but there are other songs where the music actually complements what the lyric is. summer, highland falls is kind of about manic depression. and it goes up and it goes down, it goes up, it goes down, and this manic thing.
so, they went, go, go. go, go. go write. don t go changing and i was writing and i was thinking, i must have heard this before. did i steal this from somebody else? is this someone else s melody? and i realized, yes, you idiot, you wrote it in your dream. you dreamt it and the dream reoccurred. and it s hard to do, i ve tried to put a tape recorder next to my bed, and hum into it and, you know, sing the melody. and it always sounds like, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. i can t figure out what i was doing. so, it doesn t work like that. support your immune system with a potent blend of nutrients and emerge your best every day with emergen-c okay everyone, our mission is complete balanced nutrition. together we support immune function. supply fuel for immune cells and sustain tissue health. ensure with twenty-five vitamins and minerals, and ensure complete with thirty grams of protein. brayden has amazed me. he s so strong. you hear about cancer, but you don t ever think that it
songs, what s the one you are most proud of? that you feel like, you were saying, you know, when you write, sometimes you think, this is damn good. i think a song like and so it goes, is a song i m very proud of. it s very short. it s very simple. there s not a lot of accompaniment. the chords are really evocative. you hear the dissonance? there s always just a little bit of a sour note in every chord. in every heart, there is a room a sanctuary safe and strong
i took the good times, i ll take the bad times i take you just the way you are why do we need the words? because that s what sells records. but why? because yeah, i mean, is it what allows us to remember the tune? i think so. it s a way like when i was writing just the way you are, i didn t have the lyrics. i recall the melody and the chords. don t forget the freaking words let me get to a piano and then i ll write them so i dovent n t forget them, because this could be a real good song just anything to hold onto the