Billy Joel Briefly Mentions Axl Rose (Vulture Interview)

[ludurigan]

Billy Joel briefly talks about Axl Rose on a brand new Vulture interview

 

The other day I was watching footage of Axl Rose singing “Big Shot” with you at Dodger Stadium. What’s that guy like?
I met Axl a long time ago when he was real big with Guns N’ Roses. I was in L.A. and went to a club and Axl Rose was there — it turns out he’s a fan. So I’m sitting at a table with Axl and these women are coming up, leaning over so you could see every inch of cleavage, offering themselves to him. I’m looking at Axl like, Aren’t you interested in, you know, meeting these women? No, he just wanted to talk about “Captain Jack.”

 

Full interview = http://www.vulture.com/2018/07/billy-joel-in-conversation.html?utm_medium=s1&utm_source=tw&utm_campaign=nym

 

 

 

From wikipedia:

"Captain Jack" is a song by Billy Joel featured on his 1973 album Piano Man with a live version on his 1981 album Songs in the Attic. It is considered by some to be the most important and pivotal of his early compositions because (...) (it) brought him to the attention of major record labels (...)

The song, according to Joel, is an anti-drug song. He says, "What's so horrible about an affluent young white teenager's life that he's got to shoot heroin? It's really a song about what I consider to be a pathetic loser kind of lifestyle. I've been accused of, 'Oh, this song promotes drug use and masturbation.' No, no, no. Listen to the song. This guy is a loser."^[3]

Full article = https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Captain_Jack_(Billy_Joel_song)

 

 

Lyrics

 

Saturday night and you're still hangin' around
Tired of living in your one horse town
You'd like to find a little hole in the ground
For awhile...

 

So you go to the village in your tie dyed jeans
And you stare at the junkies and the closet queens
It's like some pornographic magazine
And you smile

 

Captain Jack will get you high tonight
And take you to your special island
Captain Jack will get you by tonight
Just a little push, and you'll be smilin'

 

Oh yeah, ...

 

Your sister's gone out, she's on a date
You just sit at home and masturbate
Your phone is gonna ring soon, but you just can't wait
For that call

 

So you stand on the corner in your New English clothes
And you look so polished from your hair down to your toes
Ah, but still your fingers gonna pick your nose
After all...

 

 

(repeat chorus)

 

So you decide to take a holiday
You got your tape deck and your brand new Chevrolet
Ah, there ain't no place to go anyway
What for?

 

So you got everything, ah, but nothing's cool
They just found your father in the swimming pool
And you guess you won't be going back to school
Anymore

 

So you play your albums, and you smoke your pot
And you meet your girlfriend in the parking lot
Oh but still you're aching for the things you haven't got
What went wrong?

 

And if you can't understand why your world is so dead
Why you've got to keep in style and feed your head
Well you're 21 and still your mother makes your bed
And that's too long

 

[gnfnrs1972]

There's a piano man 

with bulging eyes

Got a supermodel wife 

and I dont know why

He is as ugly as fuck 

but he lights up her life

She finally realized that he is a dork

That supermodel wife got her divorce

 

 

That was just 5 minutes work. Hell I could be a song writer to.

[Sosso]

 

[double talkin jive mfkr]

can see lots of parallels between axl and billy joel and can understand why axl appreciates that song captain jack, a masterpiece that is almost comparable to one in a million 

[RussTCB]

It's fairly obvious to me that he meant Axl wanted to talk about music. Nothing to do with what that particular song or what it's about.

[ChineseDemocracy2004]

I've never listened to Captain Jack before. It's a good song.

[ludurigan]

1 hour ago, RussTCB said:

It's fairly obvious to me that he meant Axl wanted to talk about music. Nothing to do with what that particular song or what it's about.

of course, but axl must have been specially interested in that music for whatever reason

by the way, can you or any mod explain me why the title of the post was edited/altered/changed/censored or whatever you guys wanna call it?

i see absolutely no reason to do that

[RussTCB]

1 hour ago, ludurigan said:

of course, but axl must have been specially interested in that music for whatever reason

by the way, can you or any mod explain me why the title of the post was edited/altered/changed/censored or whatever you guys wanna call it?

i see absolutely no reason to do that

There's nothing to indicate anything other than Axl was interested in Billy Joel's back catalog.


The title of the thread was changed by me to reflect that actual contents of the thread.

[IncitingChaos]

Axl’s interest in others music has always been genuine and from stories of other artist he’s a bit of a nerd when it comes to their songs. 

U2’s One, He quizzed Brian May about Queen, with ACDC he was notorious for his interest in Bon’s catalog, Elton John he wanted to know about Topin, I think Axl is one of those hardcore fans but doesn’t really understand his own hardcore fans haha

like we genuinely want to know everything about Chinese Democracy and Axl never understood that. He never came back to tell us about each song like he said he would. He just got pissed off and disappeared again, so I’m jealous that Axl has had the opportunity to ask his idols about their music and get a response! He’s lucky. Poor @RussTCB still thinks Street of Dreams is about Slash 😂 

[Tom-Ass]

Axl did a damn fine job on "Big Shot".....

Edited July 26, 2018 by Tom-Ass

[ludurigan]

14 hours ago, RussTCB said:

There's nothing to indicate anything other than Axl was interested in Billy Joel's back catalog.


The title of the thread was changed by me to reflect that actual contents of the thread.

i believe people are smart enough to come to the same conclusion you reached or to have a different conclusion on their own

without any need to change/edit/suppress/cut/change the title of the thread

 

11 hours ago, IncitingChaos said:

I think Axl is one of those hardcore fans but doesn’t really understand his own hardcore fans haha
 

good point

[Black Sabbath]

"when he was real big with Guns N' Roses" 

 

 

 

Oh. 

[RussTCB]

8 hours ago, ludurigan said:

i believe people are smart enough to come to the same conclusion you reached or to have a different conclusion on their own

without any need to change/edit/suppress/cut/change the title of the thread

And I believe people will click on a thread they're interested in without the need for a click bait title.

11 hours ago, IncitingChaos said:

Poor @RussTCB still thinks Street of Dreams is about Slash 😂 

Let me know when they get around to playing it with Slash in the band and we'll revisit the topic 

[ludurigan]

6 hours ago, RussTCB said:

And I believe people will click on a thread they're interested in without the need for a click bait title.

 

i quoted billy joel exact words so whoever open the thread will find exactly what was quoted on the title

i suppose a clickbait title would be something "Billy Joel says Axl Rose not interested in women and prefers to talk music"

[Blackstar]

@ludurigan, speaking for myself, as a reader: I thought your original title was too long and it contained almost the full story (same with the title of the other thread with the Axl story from the UYI sessions). Titles are not supposed to do that, I think.

[ludurigan]

19 hours ago, Blackstar said:

@ludurigan, speaking for myself, as a reader: I thought your original title was too long and it contained almost the full story (same with the title of the other thread with the Axl story from the UYI sessions). Titles are not supposed to do that, I think.

yep, you are correct, too long

i prefer them short as well

gonna try to make them shorter next time

still think that editing/cutting/changing/altering/modifying/jarmoing someone else's post (be it the title or the content) is a bit indefensible

specially if there is nothing offensive or untruthful on it

but you know, i am not very good with words

some people have said stuff about situations like this with much more eloquence than I will ever be able to do