My 100 Favorite Charted Pop Songs: The Longest Time

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Hall of Famer in country? Check! Hall of Famer here? Check! Another person you’ve heard of! Two days in a row! Can you believe it??? And you’re probably wondering if I’m getting paid by the exclamation point or question mark!?!? Here’s today’s song. The Longest Time - Billy Joel Those “classic” albums in the mid-70s had a lot of things in common. One of those things was that the follow-up albums were anywhere from inferior to woeful. I mentioned in a reply that most of Linda Ronstadt’s Living in the USA album, the follow-up to her massive Simple Dreams success, makes my head hurt. I have a favorite trivia question: “What was the name of the follow-up to Frampton Comes Alive?” People don’t remember (it was I’m in You), because it was such a bitter disappointment after the big hit. Billy Joel went down that road, too. After The Stranger he put out 52nd Street, which was nowhere near the album that its predecessor was. Worse, the follow-up to that was Glass Houses, which made me almost give up on the Piano Man. Oh, he made up for it. In spades. The gritty The Nylon Curtain restored all my faith in Joel, and its follow-up was just as wonderful in a completely different way. On An Innocent Man Joel did all original songs in styles paying tribute to the innocent days of rock and roll. This song in particular celebrates the doo-wop groups of the 50s and 60s. And wow, is it great. I still don’t care for Glass Houses, but, as another song title on this album says, I’m “Keeping the Faith” because of his rebound. The Longest Time Written by Billy Joel Recorded by Billy Joel From An Innocent Man, 1983 Peak chart position: #14 Today’s country song: “I’m No Stranger to the Rain” I have been a fool for lesser things: