Jewish Stereo Types

Oh, dear. I'm more than a little behind with the Christmas songs this year, I'm afraid. Well, you can always take a look at last year's selections when I don't post (starting from here and going on through), right? It's the internet, everything is here forever! But I do have something new for you today--"new" as in "a song I haven't posted about before," that is. Here's what Billy Joel called "the only Christmas song I ever wrote"--"She's Right On Time": Video posted by Gabriel Braine (Official video over here .) It's one of Joel's more obscure songs, off his 1982 album The Nylon Curtain, but in 2017 he listed it as one of his Top 5 songs on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert . *** As I wrote in my Memorial Day post , Billy Joel is Jewish . His mother was born in Brooklyn to Jewish immigrants from England, and his father was a German Jew that came to the US through Cuba, because of US quotas restr...

Do you know what you get when you google "Memorial Day songs"? You get lists of patriotic songs, and you get lists of anti-war songs. And I can't see how either of those types of songs are really appropriate for a day that is meant for remembering those that died while serving in the U.S.'s armed forces. So instead, I settled on Billy Joel's "Goodnight Saigon": Video posted by Billy Joel And while no one sings it like Billy Joel himself, I'm also adding this version by Garth Brooks from the 2013 Kennedy Center Honors, even though it's abridged. If you watch until just past a minute in, you'll see why: Video posted by Jason Eric Mumaw Perhaps this song is a little better suited to Veterans' Day, but I think it serves the memory of our fallen soldiers well. The song was criticized for refusing to take sides on the Vietnam War, but I think that that is its strength--and why it's so appropriate for today. *** Yes, Billy Joel i...