Now, amusing initially is the observation that, despite the unthinkable awfulness of this song, corporate America ate it up like hotcakes, and I still hear it on a regular basis in the grocery stores where I work. By the way, canned pumpkin is on aisle 10 next to the pie filling, for any interested parties.
Anyway, in proving that with “For the Longest Time” Billy Joel held awfulness and lameness as specific objectives, we must first locate a motive. This song in particular culls from An Innocent Man, a 1983 effort on the part of Joel’s. In other words, it chronologically follows many classic singles like “Piano Man”; “Only the Good Die Young” and “My Life.” On the cover of the album, Joel appears in clothing roughly representative of a symphony director or maitre’ d. It clashes starkly, in other words, with the beery, dangerous persona cultivated on his most vital works — hearty, robust pop songs to bend the parameters of radio, detonate our hearts and certainly exercise liberties in song structure far more than is at hand on the artistically moribund “For the Longest Time.”
And please let me reinstate that this song contains the lines “I forgot how nice romance is / I haven’t been there for the longest time”. Aside from being something operating at an outlying level of lameness, thereby pretty much obviating ulterior motives, it’s not even REALISTIC, seeing as, at this time, Joel without question could have gotten any girl he wanted. Far more likely is the impetus in the mind of the artist to avoid a Frank Zappa or Eddie Vedder situation of being attacked by a jealous fan. I’ve heard other people hating on Billy Joel, too, in recent years, sometimes a sign that you’re still wielding a considerable amount of relevance and force in society.
The listener of “For the Longest Time”; then, in a perhaps satisfying development, is thereafter able to aptly MAKE FUN OF Billy Joel, an element of mockery and belittlement vital to a balanced diet of being a dumb American consumer. In all truth, the self-deprecation in this tune has helped it receive heavy airplay throughout the decades: the ability of the listener to keep in mind all this seemingly frivolous stuff and track his personal love life from success to this arbitrarily rendered misfortune gives him the social arc for longevity in the industry. He’ll never get too powerful, in other words, like John Lennon, 2pac or Big L. And for that, I’m sure he’s ultimately thankful.
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