“My Life”, Billy Joel Track 3 on 52nd Street (1978)

The idea of living an American life–the white picket fence in monotonous suburbia with two kids and a dog–sounds like my worst nightmare, and Billy Joel seems to think so too. In the first line of his song “My Life,” he tells the story of an old friend who “couldn’t go on the American way,” and then basically tells all the normal people to fuck off by the end of the chorus. “Go ahead with your own life, leave me alone,” he sings.

Presented as a seventies pop tune with a bit of rock, select lyrics of this song have become small mantras to me as I, like every other young adult in America, pretend that I’m invincible and on top of my game. One of the best of these lyric-mantras is “I still belong (Still Belong)/Don’t get me wrong (Get me wrong)” which is sung with an increased amount of desperation in the second repetition of the refrain. This desperation seems to reflect the thoughts of people who are trying to convince themselves that they still belong in American society even if they don’t believe in the American Dream.

This urge to feel a sense of belonging and to revoke the American Dream connects “My Life” to songs in Billy Joel’s previous album, The Stranger, such as “Movin’ Out’ and “Scenes from an Italian Restaurant” even though it was the biggest hit of 52nd Street. I imagine that these songs tell the stories of people who have tried traditional American life and are fed up with it and stuck in it at the same time, however, they don’t want suggestions from nosey relatives. “Keep it to yourself, it’s my life…” they, and of course, Joel, and myself seem to say. We’re going to do what we want. We’re on top of the world. It’s our life.