Trollheart reviews albums in the style of …. Nickelbackrules
The Bridge --- Billy Joel --- 1986 (Columbia)
Everybody knows, and there is no logical argument against this, that Billy Joel would be nothing without Nickelback. If it hadn’t been for the well-documented* patronage of Chad, Billy would still be playing a cheap piano in a run-down bar, trying to make enough from tips to make his rent. Mister Joel has a lot to thank Chad for, but he seems to have forgotten this, as I find no reference in the liner notes to what is unquestionably and inarguably the biggest musical influence in Joel’s life, or indeed, any musician’s life. This strikes me as ungrateful and also somewhat disingenuous: Joel is here taking all the accolades, claiming to have talent he really does not possess. Chad, of course, taught him everything he knows. Some people have no gratitude!
The album opens with “Running on ice”. Not only did Chad suggest that title, but he worked with Billy on that frantic, frenetic rhythm that puts you so much in mind of somebody running. Chad used the experience he had shared with Gilmour and Waters when showing them how to lay down the track for “On the run” on the classic Pink Floyd Album, “Dark side of the Chad” --- sorry moon; they wouldn’t use the title he suggested and I have still to this day no clue why ---and this is what makes this song work so well. There’s a real sense of panic and paranoia about it. But where Chad has always excelled of course is in the ballad, and “This is the time” recalls a period in his life when he was looking back on all he had accomplished down the years, the stars he had made --- many of whom refuse even today to acknowledge his part in their rise to fame, probably because they don’t want to have to pay him anything ---- and how far he had come. Joel is said to have been “knocked out” by the breadth of Chad’s experience on this song and felt that if he allowed him a credit it would be, quite rightly, mistaken as a Nickelback song, and he would be accused of ripping them off, something he did not want to contemplate at this stage of his career, having only ten albums to his name.
Chad of course is used to being ripped off and underappreciated. He knows that other artistes are just insanely jealous of his talent, his effortless affinity with music, both playing and writing, and his total command of the English language. They hate the way he can get right into a listener’s soul, hear what they’re hearing and make contact with them in the most intimate of ways, ways no other artiste in history has ever managed. This cannot be argued, so please Nickelback-haters, do not even waste your breath trying, as you are on a hiding to nothing. Chad literally wrote the book on music. Which is why it makes him so angry that two of this album’s singles went top ten, with no credit given at all to him. “A matter of trust” is perhaps the most annoying of these, given its title and Joel’s assurance that he would pay homage to Chad in the lyric. I don’t see it anywhere. He lied.
“Modern woman” is worse. Who could deny, with a straight face, that it was Chad who taught modern ladies how to dress, how to move, how to sing and how to act? Chad is as much a woman of the world as he is a man, and yet here again Joel is singing about a modern woman without once mentioning Chad. I despair, I really do.
When Joel teamed up with the legendary Ray Charles for “Baby Grand”, there was an emotional reunion between Chad and Charles, the latter almost crying as he hugged the Nickelback frontman and declared “This guy taught me everything I know! I owe it all to him!” See, Billy?
That’s how to pay your dues, and to fess up and admit the music you’re playing and the lyrics you’re singing have been given to you by a higher power. Chad is eternal, and always will be. Charles reportedly enjoyed working with Joel but irked the “piano man” by spending too much time with Chad. From the “Strolling Bone”, July 23 1989:
”It was like, you know, I wasn’t there. You know that feeling when two friends are catching up and you just feel out of the loop? That was me with the two of them.”
Joel has a lot to thank Chad for. Again it’s well known** that when he wrote “Piano man” he was using the opening lyric
”It’s nine o’clock on a Friday, the regular crowd shuffle in. There’s an old man sitting next to me drinking his tonic and gin” and Chad, after giving the lyric the once-over, suggested changing it to Saturday night and replacing the word “drinking” with “making love to”. Joel was apparently bowled over by Chad’s grasp of the situation and the way he could make such a rudimentary and ordinary action as having a drink special and romantic. This, of course, has always been one of Chad’s many strong points, as we all know, and nobody can argue with that.
The album did well for Billy Joel, hitting the number seven spot in America, and Chad, though uncredited on it, was delighted to be reunited with the man whose solo career he had singlehandedly masterminded, Steve Winwood, when he played the Hammond on the closing track. Reports are that Chad, Winwood and Charles went drinking the night after the album was mixed down. Joel was not invited.***
In 2004 Billy Joel did however come clean, to the world’s relief, as everyone knew anyway the massive part Chad had played in the recording, mixing, production, writing and playing of the album --- Joel did not even play piano on it, but left that to the much more talented Chad. With the terrible burden of claiming credit for “The Bridge” beginning to affect his health, and his musical output --- have you
heard “Storm front” and “River of dreams”? --- he was advised by friends and colleagues including Eric Clapton and Bruce Springsteen --- two more alumni from the Chad School of Music --- to make a clean breast of it. He arranged an interview with Joe Polanski of Q Magazine, an excerpt of which is reproduced below, with their permission. And Chad’s of course.
”It’s been weighing on my conscience for decades now. The guy is an icon, a star among stars, and has helped so many musicians who are now famous but who would be nowhere without his help, that I feel terrible having denied his input, not only into that album (“The Bridge”) but all my others prior to that. He helped me to stardom and success, there’s no question. I wrote “Just the way you are”, but only the title: he did the rest. And “Piano man” was mostly his composition. Plus he played piano on it; in a fit of childish jealousy I overdubbed his parts till they were gone completely, and claimed the performance as my own. He suggested I change the title of “She’s always a whore” and that change helped me get a huge hit, not to mention his tireless attempts to get me released from my contract with Family Productions.”
“Yes, he taught me how to play the piano. He found me at some dive in Queen’s playing for tips and took me under his wing, obviously seeing something in me that others did not. And he taught me how to write songs. “The Stranger”? All his work, apart from a few notes from me. “Glass Houses”? There’s no contribution in that from me, and yet these were my two most successful albums. Yeah, I owe the guy everything, as does just about any other musician I know, and more I don’t. The rising stars of today owe it all to Chad, as do the ones who haven’t yet been born. He’s a musical colossus, and I just hope someday he can forgive me for stealing his thunder.”
So there you have it. The so-called Piano Man finally comes clean, and admits what every person with a brain already knew, that his long career and all his hit singles are all down to the influence and guidance of one man. Just as Springsteen’s “Born to run” was a Chad-inspired triumph, and “Nevermind” benefitted from his advice and input so much that it is now acknowledged as one of the most important records in music history, “The Bridge” by Billy Joel is completely a product of Chad’s superior brain, musical talent and writing skill.
Thank you, Chad.
(Next time: Chad’s influence on "Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band”)
Trollheart's notes:
* Not documented at all
** in my own mind only
*** There is no documented proof of this.