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Billy Joel: Cold Spring Harbor (1971)

We started at the end, and now we finish at the beginning. 

Billy Joel's first solo album has a reputation as a sort of curiousity in his catalog. For one, it was quite hard to find for a long while, as it was initually released on a small label called Family Productions and was very spottily distributed.

Another bit of intrigue was that the album was initially mastered at the wrong speed, with the main effect being Billy's vocals - which were already much higher-pitched than what we'd become used to - being pitched up to near Alvin and the Chipmunks levels. In 1983, with Billy at the height of his commerical success, the album was remixed, and given some overdubs and edits. That stands today as the "offical" version, though neither the fans nor Billy himself are happy with it. So I suppose a caveat to this entire review is that Cold Spring Harbor is not the album it was intended to be. That said, I'm going to attempt to take it at face value, using the widely-available 1983 version.


There are lots of artists - especially in the '60s and '70s - whose debut albums resemble almost nothing of what they'd become. It's tempting to put Billy in that category - and indeed if one were to do that, one might look at his two albums with rock-n-soul band The Hassles or his hard-rock duo Attila - but as primordial as Cold Spring Harbor is, it also has lots of elements that would come to define Billy's music.

Opener "She's Got a Way" would of course go on to become a classic, but not this in this form. Billy's live version from Songs In the Attic would reach #23 on the charts in 1981. It's one of those rare cases where the definitive version of a song is its live version (see also: "I Want You To Want Me" and "Baby, I Love Your Way").  The original is not much different from its counterpart but something that comes across more clearly for me is Billy's clever use of adverbs (anyway, anywhere, everywhere) at the end of each verse.

Billy has made no secret over the years of his love of the Beatles, most notably in the rampant Beatlesisms all over The Nylon Curtain, but also in choices of covers ("Back in the U.S.S.R.," "I'll Cry Instead," "Live and Let Die," "Maybe I'm Amazed"). Cold Spring Harbor is particularly indebted to Paul McCartney, subtly on the plaintive "Why Judy Why," and overtly on "You Can Make Me Free." The latter even finds Billy aping Paul's growly/shouty thing a couple of time.

Cold Spring Harbor is very much a "sensitive" album, but we do get a flash of the sarcastic bitterness Billy would later disply on songs like "Big Shot," "Don't Ask Me Why," and "Great Wall of China" on "Everybody Loves You Now." This the other song to be "rescued" by a live version on Songs in the Attic and its sentiment couldn't be more different that that of "She's Got a Way." And though it comes off as a rebuke to a someone who is becoming too big for her britches, it could just as easily be Billy taking aim at himself as he stood on the precipice of fame.

Other songs show flashes of ideas Billy would later explore in more detail. "Falling of the Rain" features a rousingly dexterous piano line that would have fit in well on Turnstiles. "Turn Around" has the country stylings that Billy would try out on Piano Man ("You're My Home") and Streetlife Serenade ("Last of the Big Time Spenders"). "You Look So Good To Me" features a harmonica, and instrument Billy would use more famously on "Piano Man."


The album ends strongly with the trio of "Tomorrow Is Today," "Nocturne," and "Got To Begin Again." 
The raw, autobiographical "Tomorrow" is another McCartney-indebted ballad, but also sounds most like a "Billy Joel" song than any other tune on the record, especially in the stripped-down 1983 version that features just Billy and a piano. "Nocturne" is a pretty instrumental that presages Billy's 2001 Fantasies & Delusions project. The reflective "Got to Begin Again" is the first in a long line of stirring album closers (see also:  "Captain Jack," "Miami 2017," "Everybody Has a Dream," "Until the Night," "Through the Long Night," "Where's the Orchestra", "Keeping the Faith," "And So It Goes").

*

In all, this is an open-hearted record with a lot of promise and a lot to recommend it. Just imagine if it had been released the way it was intended! As it is and was, the album serves as a formative set-up for the brilliant career to follow.


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