Billy Joel -- Rosalinda's Eyes

 

Time for another ROY article and this time, the singer that I'm focusing upon is none other than The Piano Man himself, Billy Joel. I haven't really listened to his material beyond the end of the 1980s so in a way, I guess it can be compared to my feelings on Yumi Matsutoya（松任谷由実）. My period of love for his music was from his beginnings as a solo singer in the 1970s to around the mid-1980s with his album "The Bridge".

In one radio-based retrospective on Joel's career that I heard when I was a university student, the DJ called him a musical chameleon in terms of how he took on a variety of styles of the times and made them his own. Billy did "It's Still Rock n' Roll To Me" as if he were strutting around like Mick Jagger, he took on "Pressure" as a hectic New Wave song, and then there was the entire concept around "An Innocent Man" which paid tribute to the soul and doo-wop of the 1950s and 1960s. But he still had all of those wonderful pop songs of his own style such as "My Life" and "Movin' Out" and "Honesty" which were all over the radio for years and were happily mangled by me at karaoke.😏

However, the first song (and it will just be the first) by Joel that I will feature in this latest Reminiscings of Youth article is "Rosalinda's Eyes" that was "merely" a track on his October 1978 album "52nd Street" when I was just turning 13. Almost half of that album got their own single releases such as "My Life" and "Honesty" but "Rosalinda's Eyes" was not one of them and yet it still got plenty of airplay on radio, and I fell for it, hook line and sinker. It wasn't the first song that I had ever heard by The Piano Man and there are so many of his tunes that I genuinely love, but there has always been something special about this one because of the light and nimble feeling of the Latin-infused melody and just how it always manages to take any edge off a tough day that I go through. Although I never lived in New York City, I seem to get rather nostalgic about sitting on the steps on an old brownstone on a sunny Saturday when I hear it.

Until a while back, I had assumed that Rosalinda was a beloved old flame of the singer but actually, the title was inspired by his mother Rosalind Nyman Joel. If that doesn't make me want to rush out and buy a Mother's Day card several months before the day itself...😭

Anyways, thanks to my recent discovery of the "Showa Pops" website with its long lists of singles released during a certain year, I can at least give three notable tunes that have already gotten their due on KKP another look-see since they debuted in the same month of release as "52nd Street".

1. Taeko Ohnuki -- Jaja Uma Musume （じゃじゃ馬娘）

2. Yumi Matsutoya -- Futou wo Wataru Kaze (埠頭を渡る風）

3. Miharu Koshi -- Love Step (ラブ・ステップ）