I enjoyed it quite a lot early on, but especially towards the end, I found the show "The Boys" to be a bit too much. Too much senseless violence, too much gore for gore's sake, too much over-the-top body count stuff. But when I eventually rolled around to the final season, one thing caught my attention: Hughie's Top Ten Billy Joel songs. And as a massive Billy Joel fan myself, mostly from back in the 1980s, I could not disagree more.
Hughie's Top Ten Billy Joel Songs, as laid out in the show, include Scenes From an Italian Restaurant, The Entertainer , Allentown, Tell Her About It, and You May Be Right. And while they avoided many of Billy Joel's most hackneyed songs like Don't Ask Me Why , Big Shot, and It's Still Rock and Roll To Me, and skipped the songs I actively hate such as Only the Good Die Young and Piano Man, my favorite Billy Joel songs tend to be his most obscure titles.
I'll grant you that Scenes From an Italian Restaurant is a well-written ballad, and I can appreciate the stitched-together pastiche of it. And I respect Allentown's subject matter and enjoy that song. But I can come up with a better Billy Joel Top Ten song list.
10- If I Only Had the Words - It's one of his early songs. I can hear in my head as I mentally play it back how high-pitched the voice of a Billy Joel in his 20s sounds. The song was released with the breakout Piano Man album the year I was born, along with that creepy-ass album cover.
9- You're My Home - That same Piano Man album included a second song I like better than the title track. You're My Home opens with guitar, which is traditionally not his jam, but what a great tune.
8- Summer, Highland Falls - Back in college, I taught myself to play the piano part for this song, which is really just arpeggio variations.
7- C'Etait Toi - A song sung largely in French, with the song then repeated in an English translation.
6- Leave a Tender Moment Alone - I'm not sure why, but this song has one of my favorite musical bridges of all time. It's a simple song, but I really like it.
5- And So It Goes - This may be the most technically impressive song on my list. The difficult-to-reproduce timing of the song, the variations in intensity, and the emotional punch it packs all combine to create a song which I'd imagine would be on many peoples' lists.
4- Tomorrow is Today - There have been a lot of songs about depression and dispondency, but this one is my favorite. It hits hard.
3- Souvenir - It's an incredibly short song. Two phrases, bookended by a theme. Short and sweet. Love it.
2- New York State of Mind - It's got to be the most mainstream title in my list, but come on. It's a great tune, and you can't deny it.
1- Noctourne - My favorite song of Billy Joel's, and it's from his first album - a classical piece with no lyrics. I purchased Billy Joel's classical piano album, Fantasies and Delusions, and I ate that up. No apologies.
I love so many of his songs. With the whistled introduction of The Stranger, the piano solo in Travelin' Prayer, the classical homage of This Night, and more than a dozen others I could name off the top of my head, this could easily have been a top 20 list. But Hughie kept his to ten, so I've decided to follow suit.