''I'm kind of in a dark place,'' Joel says. ![]() There was a time when sadness spawned genius now it just reminds him that he's alone. But for Joel, at 53, that artistic transference seems to be failing. Thus he can achieve greatness only through despair. That, of course, is the paradox: Joel's art is defined by his life, and his best work is his most morose. He works best in drastic situations, and those are always due to his relationships.'' But all us guys in his inner circle always knew that Billy writes his best when he's having problems. ''Emotionally, he takes things harder than I ever did. ''Billy does take things harder than most people,'' says Jon Small, a Long Islander who met Joel in 1965, played drums in Joel's first two bands and was briefly married to the woman who would become Joel's first wife. Even ''Scenes From an Italian Restaurant'' (on ''The Stranger'') is about how relationships that seem perfect are always doomed. ''And So It Goes'' (a ballad released in 1989) has Joel insisting that every woman he loves will eventually abandon him. ''All for Leyna'' (on ''Glass Houses'') is about an emotionally capricious lover who leaves the song's protagonist shattered and alone. ''Honesty'' (on ''52nd Street'') implies that the only way you can tell that someone really cares about you is if they tell you you're bad. Joel's sardonic gloom has been at the vortex of almost all his most visceral work. He never tried to invent a new way to be sad. In fact, it's probably why Joel is able to connect with people in a way that even he doesn't completely realize: he musically amplifies mainstream depression. This sentiment is so universal that it's a cliché. Being in love has always been the most important thing in my life.'' I want what everybody else wants: to love and to be loved, and to have a family. You don't get hugged by the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and you don't have children with the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. You don't sleep with the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. ''You can't go home with the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. ''That's a cold comfort at the end of the day,'' he tells me. I point out that many things in his life have gone amazingly well I remind him that he's in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. ![]() Our conversation continues in this vein for most of the afternoon, and after a while I find myself in the peculiar position of trying to make Billy Joel feel better. But in my whole life, I haven't met the person I can sustain a relationship with yet. ''The happiest times in my life were when my relationships were going well - when I was in love with someone, and someone was loving me. ''I'm not going to meet anyone out here,'' he says. ![]() But he tells me that he is trying to rent an apartment in Manhattan for the sole purpose of meeting women. Since he sold his East Hampton mansion to Jerry Seinfeld, Joel has been living in a modest rented house nearby. But whatever subject we touch on, the conversation inevitably spirals back to the same thing. We talk about his 16 platinum records, and his memories of making ''An Innocent Man,'' and his love of Italian motorcycles, and the obsessiveness of his dental habits. This fall he will embark on a stadium tour with Elton John, and they will sell out Madison Square Garden on the strength of songs that are two decades old next month, Twyla Tharp will take a play to Broadway titled ''Movin' Out,'' which will wordlessly interpret 24 of Joel's songs through the idiom of modern dance.Īnd yet as Joel and I drive around the Hamptons in his surprisingly nondescript car, none of these facts holds his attention for long. Drunk people will sing ''Piano Man'' for as long as there are karaoke bars, so he shall live forever. He has dated supermodels, and he married one of them. He has sold more than 100 million records, which is more than any solo artist except Garth Brooks and Elvis Presley. No realist would ever dream of attaining the level of success he has achieved. Billy Joel has led the kind of life only a fool would hope for.
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