It was just a couple of weeks ago that I received some of the most disappointing news I can remember in quite some time. We were sitting around my in-laws house down in Columbus, OH waiting to get the festivities started for my nieces graduation. @mrsbozz was playing with our great niece and I was sitting on the couch going through all the work emails I had missed on our four hour drive down there from Michigan.
Suddenly, I saw an email come through to my personal email address and when I read the preview text my heart immediately sank. There was a ton of chatter going on in the house at the time, so it barely registered with my wife when I exclaimed "what!". Plus, I talk to myself quite frequently, so she has kind of tuned it out anyway. On top of that like I said, I was catching up on work emails and those are prone to give me WTF moments anyway.
Eventually she asked what was happening and that's when I had to break the news to her....
Let me back up a little bit. Sometime last year, I sold one of my kidneys (I really didn't), and acquired the funds to purchase us tickets to see Billy Joel and Stevie Nicks in concert at Ford Field in Detroit, MI. A short time before the show was to take place at the end of March 2025, something had happened and they had to shift the show to November 15th 2025 because Billy Joel was going through physical therapy or something like that.
It wasn't too big of a deal for us, in fact it worked out a little better because we were able to secure a hotel room for the night of the concert where for the Spring date, most hotels were either sold out or charging ridiculous prices.
Unfortunately, the issues Billy was having seem to be a bit more severe and that weekend sitting on the couch in Ohio I discovered they had cancelled all remaining shows on the tour. Apparently Billy has some kind of brain issue and obviously he needs to focus on that. Clearly I am not mad that he is doing what he needs to do to take care of himself. That's the most important thing, but it's still disappointing as he was on our bucket list and at this point it is questionable if we will ever get the chance to see him.
TicketMaster is supposedly working to issue refunds to all ticket holders, so that will be a nice refund whenever they get around to it, but I would have rather seen The Piano Man live. I guess it's my own fault that I waited this long to get us tickets to see him.
In light of this disappointing news, you may have guessed that the theme for this weeks #threetunetuesday sponsored by @ablaze is Billy Joel.
It's honestly a bit of a fools errand to pick just three Billy Joel songs for any given application. He has so many good songs and his skills as a songwriter are beyond belief. If you asked me to drink acid or pick my top three Billy Joel songs I would likely be booking my ambulance to the ER vs. actually attempting it.
That being said, I really enjoy the song "For The Longest Time". It's a simple song with a nice doo wop feel to it and a throwback sound that was still a pretty new idea back in 1983. Obviously, this type of homage has been done over and over now, but back in the day, it was kind of a new (old) thing.
I think one of the things I like so much about Billy Joel is how different he can make his voice sound depending on the song. This one is a good example of that.
In case you were wondering, we were excited about seeing Stevie Nicks too, so no slight to her, but Billy Joel was the headliner, so it only felt right to focus on him for this post. "She's Always A Woman" is another one of my favorite songs from Billy Joel. A while ago on Sirius/XM radio they had a channel dedicated to Billy Joel. The played a lot of his music as well as some excerpts from him where he talked about some of his songs and how they were created.
I remember him mentioning that this song was about a woman he was with at the time who was big shot at some business and she was absolutely fierce. Pretty much the way any woman had to be back then to make it in the corporate world. That story has always kind of stuck with me and I really like this song.
I can actually see a lot of @mrsbozz in this song. She is a strong independent woman who also admits she'd be a bit lost without me. I think it's that dichotomy that makes this song so special.
Finally, I am going to leave you with one of Billy Joel's most iconic songs. My wife and I have been talking about going to New York for quite some time now. If I had been on top of things, we probably would have gotten over there while Billy was still doing his residency at Madison Square Garden. I mean, we had a whole year of chances to see him right? Unfortunately, I am kind of a tool and didn't realize that residency was even happening, so I missed the boat on that one.
As I said, "New York State of Mind" is one of his most iconic songs, and if you can watch the video the fact that he smokes a cigarette as he sings it is probably one of the most 80's/New York things I can think of.
It's almost an anthem and definitely an homage to a city that has so much going on at any given moment. I've had the chance to visit New York a couple times in my life and it seriously felt like I was in a movie the whole time I was there. It's kind of an otherworldly experience.
So there you go. Billy Joel for #threetunetuesday.
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