The one song Billy Joel thought he could never sing: “I couldn’t relate”
During the mid-1970s, there wasn’t a good chance that any rock star would have looked like Billy Joel.
He was one of the most unassuming singers in the industry at the time, but even if he wasn’t necessarily cool, there was no questioning that the guy had the kind of talent that only gets on the charts every once in a while. There was no doubt that he could hang with the greatest songwriters in the world, but that didn’t mean that he was well-equipped to sing everyone’s songs.
Because if there’s one thing that Joel didn’t like about his own sound, it was his voice. He wasn’t cut out to be a singer when he first got started, and even when he came out with his first record, he was disgusted with his vocal performance so much on his debut record that he threw the vinyl record out into the street. But if he couldn’t get the sounds he heard in his head, the least he could do was mimic someone else.
And it’s not like that didn’t work marvellously, either. ‘Big Shot’ is one of the best impressions any rockstar has ever done of Mick Jagger, and while no one should even try to touch on what Ray Charles brought to all of his fabulous songs, you can definitely hear Joel tapping into that same kind of vocal tone when he brought out his rougher voice on songs like ‘New York State of Mind’.
But the scene that Joel grew up in was a lot more focused on the songs rather than the most showstopping singer. The singer-songwriter scene had some of the finest melodists in the world among its ranks, and while Joel was making pop songs that were on the level of someone like Bach or Beethoven, his songs could have been useless if they were put next to songwriters who could get everything done with only a few chords.
Then again, there’s a good chance that someone like Bob Dylan would have loved to have had the kind of musical chops that Joel did. Dylan was never trying to rewrite the greatest composers of all time, but there’s a good chance that no one else in the world could have sounded like him if they tried. Many people might try to copy his model, but very few people can actually write a song that can stand alongside tunes like ‘Tangled Up in Blue’ or ‘The Times They Are A-Changin’.
And while Joel had a healthy respect for all of Dylan’s work, he felt that ‘Blowin’ in the Wind’ was a song that didn’t really need to be touched, saying, “I liked the folk stuff, but I couldn’t relate to a lot of it because it was all acoustic guitar. It didn’t transfer very well to the piano. Blowin’ in the Wind sounds pretty horrible on piano unless you do a sort of Gospel version.” If he was going to go for Dylan’s material, though, it would have to be in a more unique way than an overt rip of his tunes.
Plenty of people have tried to turn Dylan’s songs into some larger-than-life spectacle, but Joel’s version of ‘Make You Feel My Love’ does everything right because of how grandiose it isn’t. Anyone else would have turned the song into one of the biggest showstopping performances known to man, but for a song that’s about a gentle plea from a former lover begging to do anything to have his other half back, playing it subtle is the exact right approach.
And while Joel did have more than a few times where he could make a bombastic song every time he played, going for the subtle route is one of his genuine strong suits. Others might say that he isn’t doing much with some of his material, but it’s better for someone to know what the songs need and sing them well rather than throwing in everything and the kitchen sink into the mix.
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