The HBO Max Doc "Billy Joel: And So It Goes" Is An Absolute Must Watch For Every Billy Joel Fan

So this doc dropped a few weeks ago but I had no idea it was coming or had even aired until people started singing its praises on X: The Everything App Twitter. I'm not sure if that's because the marketing wasn't great or my washed up ass doesn't have his hand on the pulse of release schedules in this crazy streaming world we live in. But I was stoked to check it out considering how great the reviews were.

I obviously loved it as much as I expected if not even more, hence why I threw the Must Watch tag on it in the headline. What I wasn't expecting was all the stuff I learned from it. Without going too deep since I don't want to spoil anything for people that haven't watched, there were so many surprising nuggets in the doc about Billy Joel's life and career that I had no idea about. I'm not sure if it's because he's been locked in as a star since I was born or that he had a wide array of beloved songs he already had once I started listening to music, but it always seemed to me like Billy Joel likely blew up relatively early in his career after "Piano Man" came out and then skyrocketed in popularity with by releasing albums littered with smash hits that went to number 1 on the charts.

However as my good friend Lee Corso would say...

Hearing Billy's sister describe his early troubles in life really opened my eyes to how tough he had it as a kid. Even though Billy has always been pretty open about his life, which is a great trait since it makes him super relatable, I always thought he might have embellished a bit like many of us New Yorkers do when we talk about how we had to walk to school in the snow uphill both ways. Turns out, he had a pretty rough childhood that led to some pretty serious shit before he became a name in music.

Speaking of being open, I also loved how the doc didn't hide from much of the awkward or ugly stuff from Billy's past, which included how he met his first wife, how his marriage to Christy Brinkley fell apart, or when he became a punchline for being a booze bag that was always getting into some sort of trouble. I'm sure they could've dived into some of that stuff more, but when a documentary is being done with the person it is about, you just hope not to get puff pieces that fast forward over all the bad shit that we all knew about.

Finally, it was incredible seeing how great Billy Joel was a live performer when he was young. I was lucky enough to see him perform twice, once with Elton John and once with Stevie Nicks, which were both awesome shows with fellow living legends. The only bummer is that Billy was in the later stages of his performing years, which meant instead of rocking the fuck out on stage with his band, he was more subtle with it and instead did a great job engaging the audience with stories and conversation.

So if you are a Billy Joel fan that was thinking about paying whatever it costs for an HBO Max subscription these days, I am here to tell you to that it is 100000% worth it. If you need more convincing, Hard Knocks and Peacemaker will be back soon, so you can treat this doc as your appetizer of TV during the dog days of August before football takes over all of our lives again for the next five months.

Advertisement

Obligatory Hard Knocks theme song to get the blood rushing to all the right parts on this Monday afternoon.