Granville Automatic Remember the Madness and Euphoria About This Billy Joel Song

Granville Automatic’s Elizabeth Elkins tells BlastEcho about her favorite song you’ve never heard:

“Summer, Highland Falls” by Billy Joel

I remember the first time I heard this song, and the last–and each one holds such a significant place in my life, somewhere between “the madness and euphoria” Joel sings about on this non-hit from his 1976 Turnstiles record. The piano has a kind of carnival wickedness that might make you think he’s about to sing something happy, but instead he goes on for five stanzas of perhaps the best ode to wanting to lose your mind, but being way too sane to do so. There’s a touch of being a crazy musician in there, and a touch of being the only sane person in the room when your lover is losing his or her mind, figuratively or literally. In fact, my favorite line in the song is “now I have seen that sad surrender in my lover’s eyes/and I can only stand apart and sympathize.” This is the ultimate song about truly being alone.

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