songbird's crazy world

One of my treasured memories is Paul McCartney's concert at Citi Field July 17, 2009   I loved every minute of that show, but one of my favorites was when Billy Joel joined him for "I Saw Her Standing There". But what I didn't mention...How desperately I had wanted to see Billy Joel at Shea the previous year.  I tried to get tickets, but the shows sold out in minutes and secondary markets like StubHub were outrageously priced.  I cried.  Seriously/  I had not felt so bereft since I missed Simon & Garfunkel's 1981 concert in Central Park. Over this past weekend, though, my pain was eased.  I finally got to see The Last Play at Shea. What movie can boast a cast that includes Billy Joel, Paul McCartney, Keith Hernandez, Tom Seaver, Mike Piazza, Tony Bennett and Garth Brooks?    The documentary talks about Robert Moses, the building of Shea, the Mets, the music -- especially the Beatles -- a Billy Joel's biography growing up on Long Isl...

How could a "songbird" resist this writing prompt? What was your favorite song this year? Five years ago? Ten years ago? Twenty? My musical tastes, as you may have guessed, range far and wide.  2010.  My current favorite song has got to be Jimmy Buffett's cover of the Crosby, Stills & Nash song, "Southern Cross".  Aside fromt he fact that I've become a real Parrtohead in the last year or so, and have gone to two Buffett concerts, but the lyrics of this song...well, when I went on my cruise in February...I had to do some star-gazing aboard ship. 2005.  Two songs come to mind.  Melissa Etheridge's "I Run for Life" and Tim McGraw's "Live Like You Were Dying".  That was my year from hell, with surgery and radiation and chemo, and those two songs touched me deeply. 2000.  Well, for me, that was a year dominated by Billy Joel.  I have his concert album from the show he did at Mdison Square Garden on 12/31/1999.  A two-disc...

Paul McCartney and Billy Joel at Citi Field

Billy Joel's breakthrough album, released in 1977. I was 17 years old. I bought this album and must have played it a thousand times. The Stranger .. .Scenes From an Italian Restaurant .... Movin' Out .... classics. and that was the year I had a teacher who actually knew Billy Joel. Seems my teacher was a graduate of Hicksville High School, attended that school at the same time as Billy was enrolled there. Barely knew him, though --- he would cut school to hang out in Oyster Bay or Cold Spring Harbor. I was very impressed, of course. though this was before I met my now-ex husband. he and his older sister also "knew" Billy -- they used to hang out in some candy shop in Hicksville back in the day...and billy would hang out there sometimes, too. I suppose every Long Islander of a certain age has a Billy Joel story like this. anyhow, Billy Joel became one of my favorites back then, and I am still a fan to this day.