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Billy Joel - Summer, Highland Falls

Billy Joel - Summer, Highland Falls Lyrics and Youtube Music Videos

Album: Turnstiles
Released: 1976

Summer, Highland Falls Lyrics

They say that these are not the best of times
But they're the only times I've ever known
And I believe there is a time for meditation
In cathedrals of our own

Now I have seen that sad surrender in my mother's eyes
I can only stand apart and sympathize
For we are always what our situations hand us
Its either sadness or euphoria

So we'll argue and we'll compromise
And realize that nothing's ever changed
For all our mutual experience
Our separate conclusions are the same

Now we are forced to recognize our inhumanity
A reason coexists with our insanity
Though we choose between reality and madness
Its either sadness or euphoria

How thoughtlessly we dissipate our energies
Perhaps we'll help fulfill each other's fantasies
And as we stand upon the ledges of our lives with our respective similarities
Its either sadness or euphoria

Writer/s: JOEL, BILLY
Publisher: Universal Music Publishing Group
Lyrics licensed and provided by LyricFind

Summer, Highland Falls

A track from Billy Joel's fourth album, this song is about manic depression. He wrote it in 1975 during a transitional period in his life when he was moving back to New York after spending the previous three years in California. At a Howard Stern Town Hall event in 2014, Joel explained: "It was more about manic depression than depression. That song was about a relationship that wasn't really working out. It was very disappointing - you want everything to work out and when it doesn't, how do you deal with that?"

Joel wrote the music to reflect the highs and lows of manic depression. The song has a musical piano theme: the left hand plays the "depression" part, going slowly up and down, while the right hand is the "manic" part, playing a bouncy bit. "It actually describes manic depression in the music," says Joel.

Many yearbooks have been filled with the opening lines to this song:

They say that these are not the best of times
But they're the only times I've ever known

It's a very unusual song in that the title doesn't appear in the lyric and there's no chorus. This limited its hit potential, but the song has endured as a favorite for many of Joel's ardent fans.

Highland Falls is the village in the southern part of New York State where Joel lived at the time.

Billy Joel - Say Goodbye To Hollywood

Billy Joel - Say Goodbye To Hollywood Lyrics and Youtube Music Videos

Album: Turnstiles
Released: 1976

Say Goodbye To Hollywood Lyrics

Bobby's driving through the city tonight
Through the lights
In a hot new rent a car
He joins the lover in his heavy machine
It's a scene down on Sunset Boulevard

Say Goodbye To Hollywood
Say goodbye my baby
Say goodbye to Hollywood
Say goodbye my baby

Johnny's taking care of things for awhile
And his style is so right for troubadours
They got him sitting with his back to the door
Now he won't be my fast gun anymore

Say goodbye to Hollywood
Say goodbye my baby
Say goodbye to Hollywood
Say goodbye my baby

Moving on is a chance that you take every time
You try to stay together
Say a word out of line and you find
That the friends you had are gone
Forever, forever
So many faces in and out of my life
Some will last, some will just be now and then
Life is a series of hellos and goodbyes
I'm afraid it's time for goodbye again

Say goodbye to Hollywood
Say goodbye my baby
Say goodbye to Hollywood
Say goodbye my baby

Moving on is a chance that you take every time
You try to stay together
Say a word out of line and you find
That the friends you had are gone
Forever, forever
So many faces in and out of my life
Some will last, some will just be now and then
Life is a series of hellos and goodbyes
I'm afraid it's time for goodbye again

Say goodbye to Hollywood
Say goodbye my baby
Say goodbye to Hollywood
Say goodbye my baby

Writer/s: JOEL, BILLY
Publisher: Universal Music Publishing Group
Lyrics licensed and provided by LyricFind

Say Goodbye To Hollywood Song Chart

Joel wrote this with Ronnie Spector in mind, which he talked about on The Howard Stern Show, where he also explained that it's written in a high key and challenging to sing - he had an easier time hitting those notes when he wrote the song. As for Spector, he was a big fan of her and loved the girl-group sound she exemplified. He met her a few times over the years, but only after he wrote the song.

Joel had recently moved from Los Angeles to New York, which helped inspire this song. He is from Long Island, and did not like life on the West Coast.

This was released in the US as the B-side to "I've Loved These Days" a month before it was put out as an A-side. Neither song charted, but in 1981, a live version recorded at the Milwaukee Arena was released on Joel's Songs In The Attic album and hit #17 in the US. Songs In The Attic was the first digitally-recorded live album.

Ronnie Spector, who was the inspiration for this song and leader of the popular girl-group, The Ronettes, recorded this song in 1977. She said at the time: "In a way it's my life story 'cause I was married in Hollywood, I lived in Hollywood, my life fell apart in Hollywood and now I am saying goodbye to Hollywood."
Spector's version was produced by Little Steven Van Zandt, who she met while singing backup for Bruce Springsteen in 1976. Springsteen's E-Street Band played backup for her.