In the official trailer for Billy Joel: And So It Goes, the musician considers a reality in which “Uptown Girl” was a Mozart piece. It’s not entirely farfetched. His history as a musician started with listening to classical music. Besides, the singer and songwriter has learned not to count out the impossible. “Sometimes it’s alien to me — this guy, Billy Joel. I don’t know who that is, or what that is,” he says in the clip from the two-part HBO documentary. “I’m reminded of it when I go walk on the street. Oh, right, I’m that guy.”
Joel doesn’t have an explanation for how his first band, the Hassles, were ever successful (“I don’t know one person that liked what we were doing”) or how he ended up dating the supermodel Christie Brinkley (“Me? I’m from Hicksville”). Still, he thinks he has the secret to the music mostly figured out. “If there was a skeleton key to unlocking what’s behind the songs, it’s my relationship with others,” he said.
In the documentary, Joel will reflect on how his upbringing influenced his songwriting. “I’m still trying to put the pieces together,” he says in one scene. “I didn’t know my father at all from eight years old until I was in my 20s. I’ve had a lot of hard lessons in my life.” There’s trauma that lingers, but he learned how to flip it into music magic.
Paul McCartney appears in the trailer to recall his first encounter with the singer, saying, “When I first heard Billy Joel, it was like, wait a minute. ‘Who’s this?’” Even Bruce Springsteen popped in to admit, “Billy’s melodies are better than mine.” For P!nk, Joel prevailed because “he cares about the human experience” and “he wrote songs that mattered.”
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Joel learned “that life is a fight,” and wore his songs like armor. “I think music saved my life. It gave me a reason to live,” he says. “Everything I’ve done and everything I’ve lived through has somehow found its way into my music.”
And So It Goes premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival in June. Joel was unable to attend the screening due to his recent brain disorder diagnosis. The first part of the film directed by Susan Lacy and Jessica Levin will premiere on HBO on Friday, July 18 at 8 p.m. EST followed part two on Friday, July 25.=
