Billy Joel - Glass Houses

Glass Houses is Billy Joel's New Wave Album. No it's not. It's his Rock album. No. It's Billy Joel's version of punk....

No no no. You're missing all the points.

1 - that's his actual house, that he lived in.
2 - new, old, doesn't matter, it's all rock and roll.
3 - Billy Joel stopped writing music because he felt like his turn was over. This was right smack dab in the middle of his turn, and writing complex stories about actual life was definitely his home field advantage.

He's about to throw a rock through his own front window, the album starts with the glass breaking, and he proceeds to live out his rock and roll life in the songs. You feel how you feel, you do what you do, life is what you make it. It's all the same story, go live it.

It really is the same story. The album really is Billy Joel's version of all of it. Every possible version of the rock and roll love story. I don't want to grow up, oh crap i already grew up. I don't want to get old and die, oh crap i'm old and... Did i waste my life being reckless? Who's behind the curtain? You. This is your life.

I love all of Billy Joel's work, but i have a special fondness for this album because it and i were conceived and born at basically the same time. Now i have a copy (yay!). It's hard to call it his most diverse sounding album, but there is a wide variety and real sense that the various stages of his life are playing out in the glass-shard vignettes scattered around the floor at his feet.

I think the real takeaway is that it doesn't matter which side you're telling the story from, it's the same story. The only thing that changes is your perspective, and it's going to happen whether you want it to or not. Might as well enjoy the ride.

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