For The Record-02. August. 2025

Some thoughts on the Billy Joel rock doc, class themes and classism

In high school, I spent most of my time railing against just about anything remotely considered pop music, so it should not surprise you that I was less than pleased when Billy Joel's "Time to Remember" was nominated for my class's theme song. That my vote was for Talking Heads' "Road to Nowhere" should also tell you a lot about what I used to be like.

I mean, we were in Oregon! Indie/Alternative was having a moment, and we were gonna have this? This schmaltzy pop ballad from a mainstream artist?! We might as well have just thrown in a vote for Jack Wagner. Wasn't Joel someone our parents were into? WTF? The fact that David Byrne is only a couple of years younger than Joel was completely lost on me, which should also tell you something.

And did anyone read the lyrics? It should be clear that they did not.

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Billy Joel is all of those things. He is also a lot of other things. He is the living embodiment of multiple things being able to be true at the same time. He was also a lot like me and my circle than I cared to admit, something that I came back to repeatedly while watching And So It Goes.

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