Billy Joelisms-Laura
Posted by Stephanie Paquette
Here's a little Billy Joel trivia for you. In person, Billy Joel is known for using expletives and while speaking kindly to others, he uses colorful language. However, in his lyrics you will RARELY find even one of the more PC swears and vulgarities.
There is one song where Billy uses the "F" word. It's off of the Nylon Curtain album released in 1982, with fewer hits than its predecessors (the Stranger, Glass Houses and 52nd Street), it houses such hits as "Allentown", "Pressure" and "Goodnight Saigon". This album has a noticeable Beatles feel, especially in songs like "Laura". Particularly because it is more of an album experience, with symmetry in intros and outros that echo from other songs. The songs fit together stylistically and dogmatically. Very cyclical and cohesive. I dig it.
When I first heard "Laura", I assumed it was about a torrid love affair. Welp, I was wrong. It's actually about a family member. The song sounds haunting and you almost feel like you're in the middle of an internal struggle with mr. Joel. It's about the situations we get into when we're caught up in a family member or close friend's vices and downward spirals, but we can't help but answer those middle of the night phone calls.. to help, however futile and enabling it can be.
Notably, Billy remarks,
"Here I am
feeling like a *fucking* fool
Do I react the way exactly
She intends me to?
Every time I think I'm off the hook
She makes me lose my cool
I'm her machine
And she can punch all the keys
She can push any button I was programmed through
Laura
Calls me
When she needs a good fix
All her questions
Will get sympathetic answers
I should
Be so
Immunized
To all of her tricks
She's surviving
On her second chances
Sometimes I feel like this
Godfather deal is all wrong
How can she hold an umbilical chord
For so long?"
Phrases and terms like "Godfather deal" and "umbilical cord" really argue that it is about a younger relative Billy has some responsibility for.
I'm not a huge endorser for expletives in lyrics. Not a fan. But, here I think it works. Sometimes I feel like the "f" word adds a certain emphasis or helps finish the cadence in a line.
Personally, I hate Aerosmith. But in the version of "Dream On" from Live Bootleg, Steven Tyler wails, "And all the things you do, motherf*****, come back to you." It makes me almost not hate Aerosmith...it adds an emphasis it was lacking and it also sounds a little funny (Kind of like Aerosmith itself). Well, I guess that expletive and "Seasons of Wither", their only decent song, make them a laughable rock icon.
Posted: March 23, 2009 2:13 pm | 1 comment
Tags: Aerosmith, Billy Joel, classic rock, Cursing, family problems, nieces, The Beatles, The Nylon Curtain
Comments
My mother is a huge Aerosmith fan and I grew up to listening to Steven Tyler and his wailing. My mom is a nurse and worked closely with Steven Tyler's mother before she died last year.
said Amber Wilmot
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