Spotify playlist: https://spoti.fi/3O70Erp

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“Songs In the Attic” is my favorite Billy Joel album.

I got on the Billy Joel train with “Glass Houses,” his “new wave” album. By this time Billy was an established quantity, a man with tracks on AM and FM, but that was not the case previously, especially nationally.

You see “Piano Man” was a hit single, when you only listened to AM in the car and FM and albums ruled at home. Billy was never perceived as cool. You couldn’t avoid the hit single, but unless you bought it you probably never heard the album.

And then came two more that were stiff out of the box. You see Billy had no built-in fanbase, to keep his music and career alive. Not at a prodigious level. It wasn’t until “The Stranger” that Billy Joel became a ubiquitous superstar. Never underestimate the influence of Phil Ramone, he gave the album a sheen, he levitated Billy’s sound to a whole new level, and it was embraced by many.

But not all, because “Just the Way You Are” was perceived to be too sappy, especially the change at the end. Oh, it was a gigantic hit, but it seemed to be an exercise as opposed to a reach. And those days were different, the cognoscenti, the FM crowd, only respected you if you tested limits, if you pushed the envelope, if you shot for the stars. Today if you have a hit single you’re considered a god, a success, that’s the goal, but it wasn’t back then.

Then came “52nd Street.” With “My Life.”

“My Life” was bigger than any track of the last ten years, maybe twenty. “My Life” was everywhere. Maybe it was a bit too poppy, but the message resonated with boomers in the seventies, after the youthquake of the sixties had passed and they were forced to take the working world seriously. Their parents told them to do one thing, was that the path they should take? And in truth, most did what their parents wanted, they played it safe, they lived through musicians taking a risk.

But the opening track “Big Shot” had balls.

I could never get over the fact that Billy was pictured on the cover with a horn he didn’t play, but “Big Shot” exploded out of the speakers, I had to drop the needle on it whenever I went to Tony’s house, he owned it, I wasn’t ready to take the risk.

“Because you had to be a big shot, didn’t you

You had to open up your mouth

You had to be a big shot, didn’t you

All your friends were so knocked out

You had to have the last word, last night

You know what everything’s about

You had to have a white hot spotlight

You had to be a big shot last night”

Rock stars were anti-establishment, they didn’t want in, they wanted to stay out, which was part of their great appeal. That’s what being a rock star is all about, doing it your way, not caring what everybody else thinks or says.

You didn’t want to hang with the glitterati, the rich and famous, YOU were rich and famous, they needed to come to you, not vice versa. This is the opposite of today’s paradigm where the goal is to become a brand and become a TMZ insider, partying and hanging with the empty drivers of culture, who live to be seen as opposed to create, those who constantly need to tell you where they’ve been, what they’ve done. A true rock star doesn’t have to do this. If you see a banker posting pictures on Instagram on his yacht, laugh hysterically, because they don’t get it, they’re not a rock star, they’re just on the greased totem pole of finance, where there’s always someone richer and money is the only thing that counts. The truly great don’t have to tell anybody, IT’S SELF-EVIDENT!

Then came “Glass Houses.”

Far from one of my favorites today, I don’t know why I jumped in at that point. And I went to see Billy at the Forum. I was worried about being judged, Billy still had little rock credibility, but he gave it all on stage, as much as anybody, no wonder he needed artificial hips.

But then came “Songs In the Attic.”

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Just drop the needle. That’s what I did, and boy did I get a surprise.

I’d read the hype, I knew the story, this was a re-recording of all of Billy’s songs from the early era that most people didn’t know, he wanted them re-exposed with more dynamics, more oomph.

I didn’t know “Miami 2017 (I’ve Seen the Lights Go Out On Broadway).” It wasn’t a hit, wasn’t played on the radio, it was part of “Turnstiles,” the second step in the wrong commercial direction, but in that case the song ended the album, on “Songs In the Attic” it opened it.”

“You know those lights were bright on Broadway

That was so many years ago

Before we all lived here in Florida

Before the Mafia took over Mexico”

This was when Times Square was still dangerous, Ford had told the city to “Drop Dead.” It was still the greatest city in the world, but it seemed to be in peril. But you can leave New York physically, but you can’t emotionally. You’re always a New Yorker. You still believe, even if you live in Florida.

“Miami 2017” EXPLODES out of the speakers. It’s almost like a rocket liftoff at Cape Canaveral. And when Billy starts to tickle the ivories you’re ALL IN!

But as great as “Miami 2017” is, it’s the following cut that’s my favorite, “Summer, Highland Falls,” also originally on “Turnstiles.”

“They say that these are not the best of times

But they’re the only times I’ve ever known”

You may think you were born at the wrong time, but you’ve got to own your experience, which only you know, don’t let others define you, do the best to create your own reality in the era you walk the earth.

“It’s either sadness or euphoria”

Life is up and down. It’s even worse for musicians. Many are prone to depression. They have the highs, and then…

As for the feel of the song… Have you ever been to upstate New York? Outside of New York City? Highland Falls is not that far, but it’s a totally different mind-set. New York is a big state, it’s got the most ski areas of any state on the east coast. There’s a mentality, a feeling upstate, you’re in the hinterlands but you’re still on the east coast, unlike in the west, where you may be ten hours from the next city.

And some might say the killer is “Captain Jack,” but the tour-de-force on the second side is “The Ballad of Billy the Kid.”

“From a town known as Oyster Bay, Long Island

Rode a boy with a six-pack in his hand”

You were a suburban outlaw. Feeling like a big shot at the shopping center. Talk about dynamics… The track starts slowly, a horse clopping down the path, and then it’s shot out of a cannon. You’re listening alone, but you’re caught up in the mania as if you were at a live concert.

But in the middle of the first side of “Songs In the Attic” were two songs I knew from radio play, but never loved. “Los Angelenos” and…

“Los Angelenos” has it right. Billy nails it. But the feel is wrong. L.A. at the time was most definitely a rock town, and the original was too soft. The live version had more energy. But it was the song before “Los Angelenos” on the album that resonated, “Streetlife Serenader.”

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“Streetlife serenader

Never sang on stages”

Frank Zappa knew about doo-wop. But that whole turn of the decade New York sound, the street corner singing, where Dion made his bones, was already in the rearview mirror by time the Beatles hit. Most boomers had no familiarity with it. Billy sang about it, kinda, but mostly we didn’t get it. And the version on “Songs In the Attic” is definitive.

“Midnight masqueraders

Workin’ hard for wages

Need no vast arrangements

To do their harmonizing”

Now before the CD era, in the eighties, the record labels started discounting catalog, which is when I filled out my Billy Joel collection. And in truth, “Turnstiles” is the one I play most, actually the Billy Joel album I play most today, usually when hiking in the mountains, it’s otherworldly, as in it puts you in an alternative reality, in a bubble, you can see the rest of the world if you choose, but you no longer have to pay attention, it’s a release from the real world.

And like I said, “Turnstiles” contains “Miami 2017” and “Summer, Highland Falls,” and it also contains the originals of “Say Goodbye to Hollywood” and “I’ve Loved These Days,” which were contained on “Songs In the Attic.”

But “Turnstiles” also contains Billy Joel’s piece-de-resistance.

“New York State of Mind.”

“Some folks like to get away

Take a holiday from the neighborhood

Hop a flight to Miami Beach

Or to Hollywood

But I’m taking a Greyhound

On the Hudson River Line

I’m in a New York state of mind”

Billy wasn’t looking for America, he’d already found it. And Ratso Rizzo and Joe Buck were still in the city, he was with the rest of the silent strivers looking at the beautiful countryside.

If you grew up on the east coast, listening to “New York State of Mind” makes you want to go back there, immediately. In Los Angeles it’s about your body, in New York it’s about your mind. And that’s very different.

But “New York State of Mind, one of Billy Joel’s most famous songs today, was nowhere yesterday. One can argue strongly that it didn’t ascend into the pantheon until after the Twin Towers fell and it became an anthem of belief. Sure, Frank Sinatra sings about New York, New York, but there just isn’t the gravitas, the underlying feeling contained in “New York State of Mind,” which is now a standard.

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Now if you pull up the Legacy Edition of “Piano Man” on your streaming service of choice, you’ll hear a phenomenal concert broadcast on Philadelphia’s WMMR back in April 1972, fifty years ago, which broke Billy in the city. “Captain Jack” was a local hit, it sustained his career until he ultimately broke through nationally.

But that’s not what I wanted to hear today.

I had to hear “Songs In the Attic.” You see it’s in Hi-Res Lossless on Apple Music. Not that every Billy Joel album is, “Piano Man” is not. The logic here? I cannot tell you.

So I decided to go through Billy’s albums and see which ones were in Hi-Res. I went back in time, usually the old albums are not, but not only was “Turnstiles” in Hi-Res, so was Billy’s second Columbia album, probably his least successful commercial endeavor, 1974’s “Streetlife Serenade.”

Unlike “Turnstiles,” “Streetlife Serenade” is not laden with songs that ultimately became classics. The most famous song on the LP is “The Entertainer,” which supposedly is a reaction to Columbia’s handling of Billy’s career, but to this radio listener it seemed to be cut in the same mold as “Piano Man.” And it had this ersatz non-FM rock feel. I mean this was not the way to win your way into the hearts of fans who lived for music.

And they played “Entertainer” on the radio. But even more “Los Angelenos” in L.A. They played “Streetlife Serenade” rarely.

“Streetlife serenader

Never sang on stages”

Today’s musical acts play to the last row. Their songs are not intimate. But this album-opening cut played to you only, it tugged on your heartstrings, it made you think. You were a bit nostalgic, and pondered your choices, your future.

“Child of Eisenhower”

Now that’s someone who’s been forgotten. People still reference JFK and those who came after, but the fifties, despite rampant racism, were perceived to be quiet, with an undercurrent of rebellion that most people could neither see nor feel.

“Midnight masquerader

Shopping center heroes”

There’s that localism. Bringing it right back to the suburbs, where everybody wanted to live back then, to escape the grit of the city, the rebellion against these lands of split-levels and lawns came later.

And the definitive version of “Streetlife Serenader’ is on “Songs In the Attic,” but after listening to a bit of “Los Angelenos,” I pulled up the original on Apple Music.

This is decades ago. You think about all the technological improvements since. You’d think the old records would sound quaint, as if the seventies were a backwater. They were not.

But the studio “Streetlife Serenade” lacked something from the live version. But then it slid into the second verse.

Don’t let anybody say you can’t hear the difference between Hi-Res and regular lossless, regular HD, CD quality. If you’ve got the equipment to play it back the differences are self-evident, it’s the difference between being out of focus and crystal clear.

And the goal of yore used to be to get a stereo system that reproduced all the music. That got as close to the original as possible.

But in this headphone world, we’re used to compromised sound, THAT’S THE STANDARD!

So when the second verse started to play, underneath the crystal clear piano and Billy’s vocal was this overpowering bass and drums. It’s like someone lifted the curtain and the band kicked into gear. And kick is the appropriate term, I could feel it in my gut.

I never heard it like this before.

But I’d never heard it in Hi-Res before. Where the bottom was not only present, but defined, not a mass of distortion. The music is there, I just needed a system to reproduce it. The subwoofer was proving its worth. THIS is what music sounds like, THIS is rock and roll, despite being at times quiet. Because rock and roll is about dynamics, soft to loud, emphasis, it’s played with all your heart, as well as all your energy. You lay it all on the line. This is not the Philharmonic, on salary, going through the motions. These are people with no safety net, who either get it right or go back to their hometown, oftentimes to a dead end job. Billy and the band are playing like they need it. They’re not showing off, they’re just doing what they do, and that’s enough.

It’s not like we lament not having been able to shoot selfies at the show way back when. It was a personal experience. There were usually seats. The music was respected. It was just you and the sound. That was more than enough, it was EVERYTHING!

“New York Times” reporter David Gelles is the author of the best-selling book about Jack Welch entitled “The Man Who Broke Capitalism.” In addition to going deep into the Chairman and CEO of General Electric, we discuss Boeing and the climate, Gelles’s beats too.

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/david-gelles/id1316200737?i=1000569882042

https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/9ff4fb19-54d4-41ae-ae7a-8a6f8d3dafa8/episodes/89ad8316-7eb5-4eae-a8f7-ab980f66deda/the-bob-lefsetz-podcast-david-gelles

https://www.stitcher.com/show/the-bob-lefsetz-podcast/episode/david-gelles-204873625

There’s an enthusiasm crisis. As in there is none. No excitement, no defense, to a great degree an ostracization. How are you supposed to win hearts and minds this way? YOU CAN’T!

From before he took office, the right has defined Biden as old, doddering and senile. And the left wing defense? NONEXISTENT! To the point where Biden is now discounted, seen as a placeholder who has no effect.

Now everybody has weighed in on Trump’s tweetmania. They thought it was about Trump, but in truth it’s about the changing world we live in. The Democrats are still living in the twentieth century, whereas the Republicans are living in the twenty first, at least when it comes to communications, getting the word out. All the headlines are about Fox News, but that’s a blip on the radar compared to the online assault, not only the “Daily Caller” and its ilk, but the acolytes posting ad infinitum, shoring up the base, feeding people with outrageous information, frequently false, but the base is rallied. Who is rallying the base on the left? NO ONE!

As a matter of fact, it’s internecine warfare on the left. With AOC and her squad on the left, and the usual suspects demanding that they be silenced and the party hew to an antique paradigm that lost its power long ago.

Now let me see… The Republicans won by running ever further to the right. But on the left, this paradigm is dismissed. You see it’s about exciting people. And no one is excited about Biden, NO ONE! You’ve got to light a fire under those who vote and will possibly vote. And you can only do that by owning the twenty first century, by playing by modern rules.

So time keeps on passing. It’s amazing. People born in the year 2000 have now graduated from college. Yet the Democrats keep operating like it’s still the nineties, maybe even the seventies. What applied in 2016 no longer applies. What applied in 2020 no longer applies. The thought was we run Biden to beat Trump and end the chaos. But then what? NOTHING!

Oh, there was some progress, especially in the first six months of his term, but then he focused on building consensus, which is impossible in Congress, and legislation was stalled. And he appeared neutered, powerless. So even those who gave him the benefit of the doubt soured on him.

Let’s be clear, Biden can’t run in 2024. No way. We don’t need a placeholder, we need a person of action, who will move this country forward, who people can rally around, who will foment change.

In all honesty, I’d be behind Biden resigning. The Pope did, he was too old, lost control, wasn’t up to the challenge, they brought in new blood. After the midterms, Biden could resign and Kamala Harris could take his place. Oh, don’t give me the negative talk, speak of her ineffectuality up to this point, after all, what does a VP do other than wait for the President to die or become incapacitated? Don’t tell me about her likability. Don’t buy into all the right wing blowback. Harris doesn’t have to be elected, SHE ALREADY HAS BEEN!

What do we know about Kamala Harris?

She’s a fighter, she knows how to stand up to people, how to bite back, SHE KNOWS HOW TO MAKE NEWS! And that’s what it’s about here folks, making news, building enthusiasm. Trump may be off Twitter but that does not mean the game changed. From now on, you have to have your name in the news every damn day, YOU have to control the narrative, not your opponents, not the press. I’m not saying you have to spread falsehoods like Trump, I’m just saying you have to communicate constantly.

Like social media stars, which Trump was. Social media runs our country, but you’d never know it by the efforts, or lack thereof, of the Democrats.

Who bitches about social media? THE OLDSTERS! Does it have an inhibiting effect, does it decrease the numbers of participants? OF COURSE NOT! The youngsters rule online, they leave television and newspapers to the oldsters. The two of which have ever less effect.

It’s the oldster musicians who bitch about having to post on social media, YouTube, keeping their name alive. Youngsters don’t, they know this is the game, this is what you have to do. If you’re not posting constantly, you’re dead.

Like those writing books. I’m talking nonfiction here, not fiction. Let’s see, you take years to write the book, the publisher delays publication to fit the release schedule and then needs time to drum up support and then the book is released and despite the ink, almost no one reads it! If your goal is to write a book, give up now. You’ve got to dive in online, and write each and every day. Those are the people who are moving the needle, not the academics and long in the tooth analysts and politicians functioning in a dead tree world. Hell, one of the other pet peeves of the book business is digitization. Let’s see… The authors write on computers, they send the file to publishers on computers, they’re edited on computers, BUT THE BOOK MUST COME OUT IN PHYSICAL FORM! Everybody reads online, by taking this rearguard position the book business is preventing itself from growing, reducing its influence and illustrating that it is out of touch with the younger generations who’ve been reading online since kindergarten. It’d be like musical acts sending CDs… Oh, that trope still exists. Someone can’t feel good about themselves unless there’s a physical copy which they can send to people even though today’s computers don’t even have disk drives.

You’ve got to live in the future, at least the now.

So the Democratic party is run by boomers, people like Biden who are older than boomers. How can younger generations relate? THEY CAN’T! What’s end game? Rule as long as you can and then fold the party? That’s what it looks like. I don’t know any young people who are excited about the Democratic party. I know tons who are excited about the Republican party, but not the reverse. This has to be addressed.

And you’ve got to speak to the issues that young people are concerned with. Debt, the minimum wage, income inequality. To be born knowing it’s nearly impossible to make it? Why even bother to vote? No one is helping you, no one is addressing your issues. I mean where else are you gonna go, you’re never gonna go right. End result, YOU GO NOWHERE!

So when Harris takes over it’s not about her automatically getting the nomination in 2024, anything but. Her reign is about shoring up the party, putting things in motion. But the primaries? Open to all. Shall the best person win. If it’s Harris, so be it. But right now, it appears to be Newsom.

Don’t tell me about Pritzker. Can you imagine the governor of Illinois winning? Not only was Pritzker born rich, a bad look on the left, but he rules in a state that the right has been vilifying for years. Yes, Chicago is in Illinois, and even though Pritzker is not the mayor, he’s tarred with the crime rate in that city. The right will make hay.

I’ve met Newsom. He’s slick and good-looking. Am I sure he’s not an empty suit? No. He’s no Jerry Brown. But Jerry Brown is in his eighties.

And Newsom has misstepped. But the truth doesn’t matter. They say he broke the law by taking his family to Montana when this was untrue. He, unlike most of the wimps on the left, pushed back hard. Which is what you have to do about falsehoods. But it’s only Newsom who is being aggressive, taking the right to task.

You should read this story:

“Newsom slams red state governors on D.C. trip, stoking speculation about his future”: https://lat.ms/3uK2Le0

Some relevant excerpts:

“Gov. Gavin Newsom said he’s frustrated with Republicans and Democrats.

He’s tired of conservatives criticizing California and rolling back rights. And he’s irked that his own national party isn’t fighting harder in the culture war.

If they won’t, he said, he will. He pushed back in a recent television ad in Florida. In an interview Monday. And in a speech in Washington, D.C., Wednesday as he accepted an education award on behalf of the state he governs — while stoking speculation about his possible presidential ambitions.

‘This is someone very proud of the state, that’s sick and tired of the state getting bashed 24/7 by the right wing,” Newsom told The Times before heading east. “I can’t take it.

‘I’m not going to just sit back and watch these guys dominate that narrative.'”

And:

“‘I’m not looking to fill a void, be the guy,’ Newsom told The Times. ‘But I’m also not going to regret not expressing myself at this moment. I’d rather take the hits from pundits. I’ll accept all that. But what I can’t accept is being absent in this national debate when democracy is quite literally in peril, when the rights revolution is being rolled back in real time.'”

He’s not pussyfooting, not fearful of offending people, he’s speaking the truth and reading this article today I got excited, and I haven’t been excited by the left in a very long time. Hell, the star of the January 6th committee is Liz Cheney, a Republican, whose voting record is atrocious, she’s a new national hero. I mean good for her for standing up for the truth, but no one on the left can carry the torch?

Yes, we need a turnover. The old guard must go. Biden first.

And we have to take risk. Speak to the people who are going to own the future, live with climate change, and not a theoretical center. God, if the center was so powerful you’d think there would be people hewing that line with a profile, but mostly we’ve got crickets. It’s no longer politics as usual, speak to the OUTRAGE!

And don’t own the woke badge, so some kids at college are out of control, as well as some nincompoops in San Francisco, but most of what young people want MOST people want. Not only the aforementioned climate issue, but a higher minimum wage, higher taxes on the rich and corporations, more OPPORTUNITY!

The problem is that those who have don’t want to lose anything, don’t want to sacrifice. Now a lot of America was disrupted by technology. This is happening in politics right now. The Democrats are the major labels, who sued their customers to try to ensure a past that was never coming back. Not only do you own the present, you delve into the future, you get AHEAD of your constituents. That’s the essence of Spotify. Most people didn’t want it, didn’t understand it, but now streaming owns music, despite the loud voices talking about vinyl and the labels with their irrelevant charts based on physical. The public knows the truth, and the public is streaming.

Time to throw the long ball. We are definitely in the fourth quarter. There’s not enough time to employ the ground game, we’ve got to air it out, play for victory.

Biden is not playing for victory. Neither are Pelosi and Schumer. I’ll give Pelosi credit, she barks back at the right, she refuses to be labeled, but she’s just too damn old. I don’t care if she’s got all her marbles, she’s got more than one foot in the past, as opposed to Bernie Sanders, who has both feet in the future, which is why young people rally around him. And the point isn’t that Sanders didn’t get the nomination the past two times, but that he came so CLOSE!

And this is not about Sanders himself, but what he represents. Hillary Clinton said no one likes him, no one wants to work with him, which is exactly why so many people love him. He’s not seen as inured to the game, he’s not seen as a member of the old boy network. He’s looking out for his constituents, THE PEOPLE! Not the corporations.

Now maybe there will be a complete disruption. Like Napster, like streaming television. Could be coming, because the game is broken.

Like that self-righteous idiot Andrew Sullivan saying if you don’t like what is going on vote. Sure, in Texas, where gerrymandering has made your vote irrelevant?

“Gerrymander, U.S.A. – In Texas’ new political map, the 13th Congressional District stretches about 450 miles from Denton, a fast-growing, multiracial city near Dallas, to sparsely populated rural towns along the western border of the state’s panhandle.”: https://nyti.ms/3IHwc6b

Or how about Wisconsin. Where the popular vote is Democratic, yet the state legislature is overwhelmingly Republican!

We could see spontaneous conflagration. Not only from the left, but the right too. The political landscape is just that heated.

But shy of that, before that happens, the Democrats have to plan and play for the future. They’ve already decided to abandon Biden, you don’t see anybody voicing support, defending him, it’s like he’s got a contagious disease.

So far, the left has only been excited negatively. Turned somnambulant by the Democrats’ failure to stand up to the right wing assault on their rights, their books, democracy itself. Do I expect the usual suspects to take action and make a difference? No. They’ve had two years and the Republicans still control the debate. Yes, conventional right wing wisdom is pandemic payments were too high. Do you see any Democrats standing up and saying the opposite? Saying sure, some people abused the system, but the average citizen was kept from financial ruin by government payments? Even when the left does something right it doesn’t trumpet its success and build upon it.

So what we need is enthusiasm.

James Carville had it right, it’s always about the economy, stupid. Focus there first. Stop telling us inflation is worldwide, that nothing can be done about gas prices and so much more. I mean it would be one thing if Democrats had taken that position and amplified it, instead they’ve abdicated and let the right run with public pain.

Speak truth. Proffer a path. Give people HOPE!

It’s the only way to get out of this mess.

Tune in today, July 12th, to Volume 106, 7 PM East, 4 PM West.

Phone #: 844-6-VOLUME, 844-686-5863

Twitter: @lefsetz or @siriusxmvolume/#lefsetzlive

Hear the episode live on SiriusXM VOLUME: siriusxm.us/HearLefsetzLive

If you miss the episode, you can hear it on demand on the SiriusXM app: siriusxm.us/LefsetzLive