Billy Joel has always strived to outperform himself. Famously and not too long ago, Joel stated, “I have not forgiven myself for not being Beethoven,” on CBS Sunday Mornings. Well, that mindset, that torturous yet highly productive mindset, has been a part of Joel’s psyche seemingly forever. Including on his debut solo album, Cold Spring Harbor.
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For those of you unfamiliar, Cold Spring Harbor is Joel’s 1971 debut solo album, and it features early tracks such as “Tomorrow Is Today”, “She’s Got A Way”, “Everybody Loves You Now”, and “Turn Around”. Most people would say that this is an incredibly well-done debut album, but not Billy Joel and his perfectionist mindset.
As a matter of fact, Joel hated the album and the creation of it. Although, is this all that surprising? Joel is, in fact, a generational talent, but anyone hunting down the legacy of Beethoven will likely never be satisfied. However, that, among other things, is surely what turned Billy Joel into the one and only Billy Joel.
Billy Joel Compared the Album’s Creation To “Pulling Teeth”
Cold Spring Harbor was the album that didn’t launch Billy Joel, but gave him the momentum to move forward. And like all firsts, there were mistakes, but mistakes that didn’t diminish the album’s quality, well, to us, at least. Not to Billy Joel, though, as he hated the entire thing.
Recalling the painful experience of creating the album, Joel stated in the biography, Billy Joel: A Biography, “It was like pulling teeth…I hated the strings. I didn’t want the session players. The whole thing was completely overproduced.” Per his resentment towards the album’s creation, he wasn’t much of a fan of it when he first heard it, and when he first showed it to his friends.
Remembering the first time he showed it to his friends, Joel divulged, “I was humiliated…I was so bent out of shape I just whipped the thing off the turntable, ran outside, and threw it down the street. After deciding just to go with it, that maybe [Artie] was right, that all our hard work would end up creating a great album, to have it be this horrible-sounding thing – it was so depressing.”
As you can tell, Billy Joel really didn’t like this album. Though, like all mistakes, it was a learning experience. A learning experience that would lead to Joel’s second album, Piano Man, which featured Joel’s staple track(a track he also dislikes), “Piano Man”. After that, Billy Joel just kept climbing the rungs of the ladder to fame.
Photo by Michael Putland/Getty Images
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