By 1982, Joel was a huge star, but serious critical respect eluded him, and that continued slight rankled him. The Nylon Curtain, his album of that year, was his most serious and ambitious to date. It was (and remains) his best, an impressive and complex suite; any of its nine songs could belong on this list – and I’m pained to exclude Allentown (an affecting reading of hardship in the Reagan era) and the psychedelic chill of Scandinavian Skies in particular. But the album’s best moment came with Goodnight Saigon’s account of life and death during the Vietnam war. Joel, a conscientious objector during the war, had considered escaping to Canada to evade the bloodshed, but a high draft number meant he was never called to battle. Some of his friends weren’t so lucky, and those who came home again urged Joel to write a song based upon their experiences of the war.
Posted on: Wed, 07 Jan 2015 16:35:16 +0000