Welcome to my weblog, which I use for keeping track of interesting stuff. It serves as my basecamp for the exploration of the Internet, the "Blogosphere" and life in general.
Somehow in the back of my mind I new about this, but still I was presently surprised to hear about a new song of my favourite artist Billy Joel, called “All My Life”.
After searching the web for about 5 minutes tonight I found a link to People’s Magazine that, as it appears, somehow got the exclusive right to broadcast the song (edit: until Valentine’s Day February 14!). This is great! So go ahead and take a listen.
I like the song. It is really slow and autobiographical. Billy sings about all his previous relationships and love affairs and that has no come to some kind of rest: “you’re the one I have wanted all my life“.
As a Billy Joel fan that does not have English as the mother tongue, I find it sometimes hard to understand what Billy Joel really means with the lyrics of his songs. Of course, this is not the case for every song, but there are songs of which you just know you are missing something. But what?
Recently I found this very nice website called Song Meanings which is collecting meanings (and often also feelings) of lyrics of a lot of artists (currently 750.000 comments to 300.000 lyrics of 25.000 artists!). The site appears to be running for quite some time, judging from the date of content provided by people.
SongMeanings was created when we saw a void in most of the lyric sites around — they didn’t have any user interaction. You goto the site, get your lyrics and that’s about it. We’re different.
We allow users to post their comments about their favorite (and not so favorite) songs and even submit their own lyrics. Our goal is to create the world’s largest and most functional lyrics site, period. We also have a community aspect with user profiles, message boards and more.
Song Meanings has a dedicated section on Billy Joel lyrics which is splendid.
I recall that a couple of years ago I found this very nice website eleborately explaining the background of the nice song “Falling of the Rain”. Tonight I tried to find it again but gave up after 15 minutes of googling. Anybody?
Billy Joel is currently touring Australia. On this page I will collect resources about the concerts “down under”. Anything I can find (articles, blog posts, video, reviews)
Some resources so far from the Billy Joel concerts in Australia (I will add more if I find them)
In this post I will gather locations on the Internet that, when combined, form the global Billy Joel Community.
One of the nicest things that the Internet has brought us, is the ability to find like-minded people that are not directly one’s neighbours. I really like hanging out in forums and reading about other peoples thoughts and experiences, on topics like Billy Joel lyrics and Billy Joel concerts.
So, here is my overview of places on the Internet where fans of Billy Joel gather:
Joelfan: the (Billy) Joelfan forum is probably the biggest hangout for fans in the world. The die-hards gather here! Language: English. Around 1000 registered users.
Piano-man.de: the biggest European Community gathers here. Language: German and English. Around 70 registered users.
A couple of months ago there was a lot of buzz about the Google Trends beta product and I wanted to present a few results, but I forgot all about it.
Recently I was confronted with it again, so here’s a second chance.
First about the Google Trends product. I will not try to explain what it is, as Google does that perfectly well on the about page:
Google Trends analyzes a portion of Google web searches to compute how many searches have been done for the terms you enter relative to the total number of searches done on Google over time. We then show you a graph with the results — our search-volume graph — plotted on a linear scale. Located just beneath our search-volume graph is our news-reference-volume graph. This graph shows you the number of times your topic appeared in Google News stories.
So here are a two comparison charts:
Billy Joel versus Elton John (I didn’t know Billy Joel and Elton John compared so good in the world of search as well!)
Billy Joel versus Madonna (ok, here’s a real difference; Madonna is much more popular than Billy Joel)
So what does it all mean? Well not much actually: it’s just search activity, but I guess it tells us something about the “fan base” of the artists.
After the great European Tour in June and July, Billy Joel is currently touring South Africa. Even though I am still enjoying my (fading…) memories from the concert in Rotterdam (read my review and a lot of visitor comments), I wouldn’t feel a real fan if I didn’t try to relive the concert by following the rest of the tour.
As far as I know, after South Africa, Billy Joel will hop over to Australia where he will be touring from the 7th until 21st of November. After that, the tour will move to Japan.
Some resources so far from the Billy Joel concerts in South Africa (I will add more if I find them)
I haven’t recovered yet from my Billy Joel madness. Google just pointed me to this nice 12:35 minutes video of the concert of Billy Joel and Brian Adams in Rome on the 31st of July 2006.
Another site tells me that “in September the concert will be broadcast free in streaming mode on terzapagina.rossoalice.it.
Last time I visited a Billy Joel Concert, back in 1994, I was not really such a fan in particular, actually still looking around and “exploring my taste”. That was also the main reason for not buying any fanstuff (and a general lack of money, because these things do not come cheap!).
A couple of years ago, Ebay helped me finding some nice Tour Program Books from previous Tours.
Last Saturday, I couldn’t resist the temptation anymore and got myself a nice T-shirt (oh my, which one should I choose???), a keyring and the Tour Program Book.
All content on this weblog is presented on my personal account, representing my own views, and as such does not necessarily reflect the views of my past, current or future employers.
Somehow in the back of my mind I new about this, but still I was presently surprised to hear about a new song of my favourite artist Billy Joel, called “All My Life”. 
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Comment [5] | 
posted Feb 7, 10:01 pm on Feb 07, 2007 |
category: Billy Joel
/ Music
As a Billy Joel fan that does not have English as the mother tongue, I find it sometimes hard to understand what Billy Joel really means with the lyrics of his songs. Of course, this is not the case for every song, but there are songs of which you just know you are missing something. But what? 
Last time I visited a Billy Joel Concert, back in 1994, I was not really such a fan in particular, actually still looking around and “exploring my taste”. That was also the main reason for not buying any fanstuff (and a general lack of money, because these things do not come cheap!).