•
Rating: Having become a fully-fledged rockstar in the seventies, Billy Joel enters the eighties with the responsibility of having to replicate the success of numerous hit singles that have made him one of the most successful confidential pop-rock singer-songwriters.
If the first three albums of the new decade, 'GLASS HOUSES' (1980), 'THE NYLON CURTAIN' (1982), and 'AN INNOCENT MAN' (1983) confirmed his greatness, the second half of the '80s saw Joel fall into an artistic and personal crisis that culminated in the 1986 album, 'THE BRIDGE'.
His artistic career is thus at a crossroads, and Joel decides to cut ties with the past, and as often happens, love helps him. Having distanced himself from the specters of alcoholism that will follow him for life, in '85, he marries the stunning model CHRISTIE BRINKLEY, with whom he will have a daughter, Alexa, setting out to compose the album of his rebirth.
'Storm Front' is released in '89, produced by former Foreigner MICK JONES (the old producer and companion of a thousand adventures Phil Ramone is abandoned, precisely to make a clean break with the past), and the album presents itself with a sharp and rock sound but above all the songwriting returns to levels of excellence.
"THAT'S NOT HER STYLE" opens the album energetically, the song is a raw blues with Don Brooks's harmonica raging throughout its duration.
"WE DIDN'T START THE FIRE" is the first single chosen to promote the album. The song is built on an original list of names, facts, events from 1949 (the year of Joel's birth) to 1989, repeated in rapid succession that lead to the energetic chorus. The song was quite successful and pushed the album to the top of the Billboard chart.
"THE DOWNEASTER 'ALEXA'" is the touching song dedicated to his newly-born daughter. "I GOT TO EXTREMES" and "STATE OF GRACE" are two other songs with a rock-melodic feel while in "STORM FRONT" (featuring the horns of the Menphis horns) and "WHEN IN ROME" the soul coordinates that made the fortune of "An Innocent Man" from 1983 can be glimpsed.
"SHAMELESS" brings Joel back to the atmospheres of his best albums from the '70s, with an excellent vocal interpretation, very soul. "LENINGRAD" is another touching piano ballad that tells the story and childhood of Viktor, a Russian born in 1944, contrasting it with Joel's childhood. A melancholic song accompanied, I recall, by an equally sad and somber black-and-white video. The album closes with another ballad for voice and piano alone, "AND SO IT GOES".
Accompanied by the trusty Liberty DeVitto on drums and David Brown on guitars and a handful of musicians chosen for the occasion, 'Storm Front' is the usual well-played and produced Joel album that has relaunched our artist's career, who will return to grand arena concerts and still record 'RIVER OF DREAMS' in 1993 before completely abandoning pop-rock and turning to classical music.
Tracklist Lyrics and Videos
02 We Didn't Start the Fire (04:51)
(1949)
Harry Truman, Doris Day, Red China, Johnny Ray
South Pacific, Walter Winchell, Joe Dimaggio
(1950)
Joe Mccarthy, Richard Nixon, Studebaker, Television
North Korea, South Korea, Marilyn Monroe
(1951)
Rosenbergs, H-Bomb, Sugar Ray, Panmunjong
Brando, The King and I and The Catcher in the Rye
(1952)
Eisenhower, Vaccine, England's got a new queen
Marciano, Liberace, Santayana goodbye
We didn't start the fire
It was always burning
Since the world's been turning
We didn't start the fire
No we didn't light it
But we tried to fight it
(1953)
Joseph Stalin, Malenkov, Nasser and Prokofiev
Rockefeller, Campanella, Communist Bloc
(1954)
Roy Cohn, Juan Peron, Toscanini, Dacron
Dien Bien Phu Falls, Rock Around the Clock
(1955)
Einstein, James Dean, Brooklyn's got a winning team
Davy Crockett, Peter Pan, Elvis Presley, Disneyland
(1956)
Bardot, Budapest, Alabama, Krushchev
Princess Grace, Peyton Place, Trouble in the Suez
We didn't start the fire
It was always burning
Since the world's been turning
We didn't start the fire
No we didn't light it
But we tried to fight it
(1957)
Little Rock, Pasternak, Mickey Mantle, Kerouac
Sputnik, Chou En-Lai, Bridge on the River Kwai
(1958)
Lebanon, Charles de Gaulle, California Baseball
Starkweather Homicide, Children of Thalidomide
(1959)
Buddy Holly, Ben Hur, Space Monkey, Mafia
Hula Hoops, Castro, Edsel is a no-go
(1960)
U-2, Synghman Rhee, Payola and Kennedy
Chubby Checker, Psycho, Belgians in the Congo
We didn't start the fire
It was always burning
Since the world's been turning
We didn't start the fire
No we didn't light it
But we tried to fight it
(1961)
Hemingway, Eichmann, Stranger in a Strange Land
Dylan, Berlin, Bay of Pigs Invasion
(1962)
Lawrence of Arabia, British Beatlemania
Ole Miss, John Glenn, Liston Beats Patterson
(1963)
Pope Paul, Malcolm X, British Politician Sex
JFK, blown away, what else do I have to say
We didn't start the fire
It was always burning
Since the world's been turning
We didn't start the fire
No we didn't light it
But we tried to fight it
(1965-1974)
Birth control, Ho Chi Minh, Richard Nixon back again
Moonshot, Woodstock, Watergate, Punk Rock
(1976-1979)
Begin, Reagan, Palestine, Terror on the airline
Ayatollah's in Iran, Russians in Afghanistan
(1983-1984)
Wheel of Fortune, Sally Ride, Heavy Metal, Suicide
Foreign Debts, Homeless Vets, AIDS, Crack, Bernie Goetz
(1988-1989)
Hypodermics on the shore, China's under martial law
Rock and Roller Cola Wars, I can't take it anymore
We didn't start the fire,
It was always burnin',
Since the world's been turnin'
We didn't start the fire,
But when we are gone
Will it still burn on, and on, and on, and on...
We didn't start the fire
It was always burning
Since the world's been turning
We didn't start the fire
No we didn't light it
But we tried to fight it
We didn't start the fire
It was always burning
Since the world's been turning
We didn't start the fire
No we didn't light it
But we tried to fight it
We didn't start the fire
It was always burning
Since the world's been turning
We didn't...
03 The Downeaster "Alexa" (03:45)
Well I'm on the Downeaster Alexa
And I'm cruisin' through Block Island Sound
I have charted a course to the vineyards
But tonight I am Nantucket bound.
We took on diesel back in Montauk yesterday
And left this morning from the bell in Gardiner's Bay
Like all the locals here I've had to sell my home
Too proud to leave I worked my fingers to the bone
So I could own my Downeaster Alexa
And I go where the ocean is deep
There are giants out there in the canyons
And a good captain can't fall asleep
I've got bills to pay and children who need clothes
I know there's fish out there but where God only knows
They say these waters aren't what they used to be
But I've got people back on land who count on me
So if you see my Downeaster Alexa
And if you work with the rod and the reel
Tell my wife I am trolling Atlantis
And I still have my hands on the wheel
Now I drive my Downeaster Alexa
More and more miles from shore every year
Since they told me I can't sell no stripers
And there's no luck in swordfishing here
I was a Bayman like my father was before
Can't make a living as a Bayman anymore
There ain't much future for a man who works the sea
But there ain't no island left for Islanders like me
Ya-ya-ya-oh
Ya-ya-ya-oh
Ya-ya-ya-oh
Ya-ya-ya-oh
05 Shameless (04:26)
Well I'm shameless
When it comes to loving you
I'd do anything you want me to
I'd do anything at all
And I'm standin
Here for all the world to see
There ain't that much left of me
That has very far to fall
You know I'm not a man who's ever been
Insecure about the world I've been livin in
I don't break easy
I have my pride
But if you need to be satisfied
I'm shameless
Baby I don't have a prayer
Anytime I see you standing there
I go down upon my knees
And I'm changin
Swore I'd never compromise
But you convinced me otherwise
I'll do anything you please
You see in all my life
I've never found
What I couldn't resist, what I couldn't turn down
I could walk away from anyone I ever knew
But I can't walk away from you
I have never let anything have this much control over me
I worked too hard to call my life my own
I made myself a world, and it worked so perfectly
But it's your world now, I can't refuse
I've never had so much to lose
Well I'm shameless...
You know it should be easy for a man who's strong
To say he's sorry or admit when he's wrong
I never lost anything I ever missed
But I've never been in love like this
It's out of my hands
I'm shameless
I don't have the power now
But I don't want it anyhow
So I've got to let it go
I'm shameless
Shameless as a man should be
You could make a total fool of me
I just wanted you to know
I am shameless
Shameless...
06 Storm Front (05:17)
Safe at harbor, everything is easy
Off to starboard, daylight comes up fast
Now I'm restless for the open water
Red flags are flying from the Coast Guard mast
They told me to stay, I heard all the information
I motored away and steered straight ahead
Though the weatherman said
CHORUS
There's a storm front coming (mood indigo)
White water running and the pressure is low
Storm front coming (mood indigo)
Small craft warning on the radio
I've been sailing a long time on this ocean
Man gets lonesome, all those years at sea
I've got a woman, my life should be easy
Most men hunger for the life I lead
The morning was gray, but I had the motivation
I drifted away and ran into more
Heavy weather off shore
CHORUS
We've got a low pressure system and a northeast breeze
We've got a falling barometer and rising seas
We've got the cumulonimbus and a possible gale
We've got a force nine blowing on the Beaufort scale
I'm still restless for the open water
Though she gives me everything I need
She asked me to stay, but I'd done my navigation
I drove her away, but I should have known
To stay tied up at home
CHORUS
07 Leningrad (04:07)
Viktor was born in the spring of '44
And never saw his father anymore
A child of sacrifice, a child of war
Another son who never had a father after Leningrad
Went off to school and learned to serve the state
Followed the rules and drank his vodka straight
The only way to live was drown the hate
A Russian life was very sad
And such was life in Leningrad
I was born in '49
A cold war kid in McCarthy time
Stop 'em at the 38th Parallel
Blast those yellow reds to hell
And cold war kids were hard to kill
Under their desk in an air raid drill
Haven't they heard we won the war
What do they keep on fighting for?
Viktor was sent to some Red Army town
Served out his time, became a circus clown
The greatest happiness he'd ever found
Was making Russian children glad
And children lived in Leningrad
But children lived in Levittown
And hid in the shelters underground
Until the Soviets turned their ships around
And tore the Cuban missiles down
And in that bright October sun
We knew our childhood days were done
And I watched my friends go off to war
What do they keep on fighting for?
And so my child and I came to this place
To meet him eye to eye and face to face
He made my daughter laugh, then we embraced
We never knew what friends we had
Until we came to Leningrad
09 When in Rome (04:50)
Well I see you in the morning
Putting on your pretty clothes
And I watch you do your makeup
LIke they do in all those fashion shows
Then you trun to me so that I can see
If you put yourself together right
Then you go away and you're gone all day
But I know you're coming home tonight
And when you're home, darling all you've got to be is you
But when in Rome, do as the Romans do
Well it's alright if you're tired when your day is done
You can see when you look at me, you're not the only one
It's a cold, cruel world for a working girl
But you can't let them see you cry
It's a fact of life, now man and wife
Work full time to just get by
And when we're home all it's gonna be is me and you
But when in Rome, do as the Romans do
I've done some strange thngs I never thought I'd do before
But if the strain brings happiness, more or less...
More or less...
Then I don't mind masquerading with all those other fools
I don't mind the games I'm playing,
Because I've learned the rules
And when tims are tough, I've got just enough
If you're standing right by my side
Darling more and more I get hungry for
All the ways you keep me satisfied
On our own there ain't nothing we can't get thru
But when in Rome, do as the Romans do
Then I don't mind masquerading with all those other fools
I don't mind the gmes I'm playing,
Because I've learned the rules
It doesn't matter when we're home, all alone
Al we've got to be is me and you
On our own there ain't noghint that we can't get thru
But when in Rome, do as the Romans do
Swing that hammer and break that stone
Push those buttons and answer that phone
Coffee in the morning and martinis at night
Everybody's working up a big appetite
Do as the Romans do...
Loading comments slowly
