Billy Joel has given us decades of entertainment and he has a stack of hits for me to choose from, but I will only choose about five of them, a nice mix spread around the 1970s, 80s and 90s.

A total of eight studio albums from ‘The Stranger’ in 1977 to ‘River of Dreams’ in 1993 saw Billy Joel have chart peaks no lower than No. 4 in Australia, three albums hit No. 1, three reached No. 2 and one album each peaked at No. 3 and No. 4.

52nd Street, Storm Front and River of Dreams were the three albums that reached No. 1 in Australia between 1977 and 1993.

This proves that while Billy had good singles, his major selling point in Australia was his albums.

Other songs of his to look at are ‘Goodnight Saigon’, ‘All About Soul’, ‘She’s Always A Woman’, ‘Uptown Girl’, ‘She’s Got A Way’, ‘You’re Only Human’, ‘Baby Grand’ and more.

We Didn’t Start The Fire

This song may have turned kids against High School as one English assignment required that students write down something about every single event that this song mentions and for those who handwritten their answers, it was a long, painful process.

Who needs years of studying when you got decades of historic events mentioned in just four minutes of song.

I love history so this song suits me just fine though I didn’t like (or completed and got away with it) the assignment, Billy is probably happy that he doesn’t keep adding to the song because history has really picked up its pace in the last couple of decades.

‘Big Shot’ is about the guy in the song mocking a woman who has a severe hangover from her intoxicated escapades when she was out on the town.

This song may be perfect for those just out of high school crowd who love pre-drinks, drinks and post-drink sessions and one of their ‘squad’ members as they call it now had a little too much enjoyment.

Remember folks if you do get drunk, don’t do anything stupid, your friends will remind you if you do and with today’s technology, they will likely record you doing it too.

We all want honesty in a relationship, we want to be told truthfully that we are doing good or be truthfully told that we are not doing good in life or in the relationship, no pretending just straight out with it, nobody getting the dreaded blindsiding revelation that was once said to be good was in reality quite bad.

I love this style of song; it is one that you can easily follow, and I do like the piano and drum combination.

The River of Dreams

1993 release ‘The River of Dreams’ is Billy’s second and last single to hit No. 1 in Australia and this song is one of those songs you won’t mind hearing once a day.

The song peaked at No. 3 in the USA, Billy’s best result since ‘We Didn’t Start The Fire’ hit No. 1 in 1989.

Piano Man

I was reluctant to put in ‘Piano Man’, there is nothing wrong with the song as I love the autobiographical lyrics, and it really sucks you right into singing the song, but the reluctance was that people may be a little sick of the song.

For all its popularity these days, it only peaked at No. 20 in Australia and No. 25 in America and the album of the same name peaked at No. 14 in Australia and No. 27 in America, but the song has endured and kept up a following throughout the decades.