“Now we are forced to recognise our inhumanity Our reason coexists with our insanity And though we choose between reality and madness It’s either sadness or euphoria” – Summer, Highland Falls
Fifty years ago this week, Billy Joel released his fourth studio album: Turnstiles.
Now, my favourite Billy Joel album is The Stranger, the one he would go on to release after Turnstiles, but I confidently say that Turnstiles is track for track the best album he released. Every song is a non-skip, it has some relatively big hits such as New York State of Mind and Say Goodbye to Hollywood. However, there are a few songs that aren’t as popular but are just as good, if not better. Songs such as Miami 2017, James and I’ve Loved These Days are amongst the best in his catalog and are incredibly underrated.
However, for the song of this week I have decided to go with the best song for the anniversary of this album: Summer, Highland Falls.
In terms of songwriting and piano composition, this is one of his absolute best. The song is all about bi-polar disorder (or manic depression if you are fortunate enough to hear Billy introduce it before playing it at a concert) and was written by Joel after he moved from LA to Upstate New York and realised, in the quiet countryside, that he had many faults. His relationship was not as perfect as he thought, his lows couldn’t be pushed to the back of his mind because he had nowhere to hide.
There is an incredible video (linked below) of Billy Joel playing the song and then discussing it at a Q&A in Nuremberg, Germany in 1995.
The song is a deeply introspective track that tackles hardships that people don’t want to confront. Its counterpart I Go To Extremes from the 1989 album Storm Front also tackles these in a much more blunt manner. Life can be tough at times and the toughest thing about it is that sometimes we don’t always know why. It’s either sadness or euphoria.
The song, in my opinion, is flawless. I think at first it can maybe read as a little pretentious, especially if you are reading the lyrics whilst listening to the song:
“How thoughtlessly we dissipate our energies Perhaps we don’t fulfill each others fantasies And as we stand upon the ledges of our lives With our respective similarities It’s either sadness or euphoria”
I remember when I first listened to this song, which was probably around 7 or 8 years ago, that I was completely hooked by the beautiful piano playing at the start. Yet I remember listening to the lyrics and thinking “what is he talking about?”
“As we stand above the ledges of our lives with our respective similarities” I now understand and am able to see the beauty in the lyrics, but I do understand that at first it can certainly sound like a thesaurus was consulted for every second word.
The title of the song reads like a journal entry, noting the time and place, of this past. It is melancholic and reflective which aligns tonally with the song itself. These are feelings of one Summer in Highland Falls, New York.
In the most recent episode of the Amazon tv show “The Boys” had a brief moment where the character Hughie (Jack Quaid) was listing his top ten Billy Joel songs. If I were so fortunate enough to be asked such a question in the wild I think Summer, Highland Falls would comfortably be in my top three.
The Stranger Sessions | Billy Joel Blog 