Billy Joel
Storm Front (1989)
1. That's Not Her Style
2. We Didn't Start the Fire
3. The Downeaster 'Alexa'
4. I Go to Extremes
5. Shameless
6. Storm Front
7. Leningrad
8. State of Grace
9. When in Rome
10. And So It Goes
That's Not Her Style
(Billy Joel)
Some people think that she's one of those mink-coated ladies
They say she wakes up at one
And she makes the paparazzi run till dawn
She wines and dines with Argentines and Kuwaitis
After she sips margaritas on the White House lawn
That's not her style I can tell you
That ain't my woman
It's just not her style I can tell you
Because I'm her man
The papers say she was seen in LA with a stranger
She found a perfect body with Maserati right outside
And then she chartered a Lear
When she heard her career was in danger
And gave the pilot somethin' extra for a perfect ride
That's not her style I can tell you
That ain't my woman
That's not her style I can tell you
Because I'm her man
That's not her style I can tell you
That ain't my woman
It's just not her style I can tell you
Because I'm her man
Not that she's never done something crazy or done something wild
It's just that she's better at doing whatever suits her style
And that's not her style
I've read where it's said that she sleeps in a bed made of satin
She's had her face done in every place you can try
They say she gets a piece of every lease in Manhattan
And says she's thirty when she's really pushing forty-five
That's not her style I can tell you
That ain't my woman
It's just not her style I can tell you
Because I'm her man
You know it's not her style I can tell you
That ain't my woman
It's just not her style I can tell you
Because I'm her man
We Didn't Start the Fire
(Billy Joel)
Harry Truman, Doris Day, Red China, Johnny Ray
South Pacific, Walter Winchell, Joe DiMaggio
Joe McCarthy, Richard Nixon, Studebaker, Television
North Korea, South Korea, Marilyn Monroe
Rosenbergs, H Bomb, Sugar Ray, Panmunjom
Brando, The King And I, and The Catcher In The Rye
Eisenhower, Vaccine, England's got a new queen
Maciano, Liberace, Santayana goodbye
We didn't start the fire
It was always burning
Since the world's been turning
We didn't start the fire
No we didn't light it
But we tried to fight it
Joseph Stalin, Malenkov, Nasser and Prokofiev
Rockefeller, Campanella, Communist Bloc
Roy Cohn, Juan Peron, Toscanini, Dancron
Dien Bien Phu Falls, Rock Around the Clock
Einstein, James Dean, Brooklyn's got a winning team
Davy Crockett, Peter Pan, Elvis Presley, Disneyland
Bardot, Budapest, Alabama, Khrushchev
Princess Grace, Peyton Place, Trouble in the Suez
We didn't start the fire
It was always burning
Since the world's been turning
We didn't start the fire
No we didn't light it
But we tried to fight it
Little Rock, Pasternak, Mickey Mantle, Kerouac
Sputnik, Chou En-Lai, Bridge On The River Kwai
Lebanon, Charles de Gaulle, California baseball
Starkwether, Homicide, Children of Thalidomide
Buddy Holly, Ben Hur, Space Monkey, Mafia
Hula Hoops, Castro, Edsel is a no-go
U2, Syngman Rhee, payola and Kennedy
Chubby Checker, Psycho, Belgians in the Congo
We didn't start the fire
It was always burning
Since the world's been turning
We didn't start the fire
No we didn't light it
But we tried to fight it
Hemingway, Eichman, Stranger in a Strange Land
Dylan, Berlin, Bay of Pigs invasion
Lawrence of Arabia, British Beatlemania
Ole Miss, John Glenn, Liston beats Patterson
Pope Paul, Malcolm X, British Politician sex
J.F.K. blown away, what else do I have to say
We didn't start the fire
It was always burning
Since the world's been turning
We didn't start the fire
No we didn't light it
But we tried to fight it
Birth control, Ho Chi Minh, Richard Nixon back again
Moonshot, Woodstock, Watergate, punk rock
Begin, Reagan, Palestine, Terror on the airline
Ayatollah's in Iran, Russians in Afghanistan
Wheel of Fortune, Sally Ride, heavy metal, suicide
Foreign debts, homeless Vets, AIDS, Crack, Bernie Goetz
Hypodermics on the shores, China's under martial law
Rock and Roller cola wars, I can't take it anymore
We didn't start the fire
It was always burning
Since the world's been turning
We didn't start the fire
No we didn't light it
But we tried to fight it
The Downeaster 'Alexa'
(Billy Joel)
Well I'm on the Downeaster Alexa
And I'm cruising through Block Island Sound
I have charted a course to the Vineyard
But tonight I am Nantucket bound
We took on diesel back in Montauk yesterday
And left this morning from the bell in Gardiner's Bay
Like all the locals here I've had to sell my home
Too proud to leave I worked my fingers to the bone
So I could own my Downeaster Alexa
And I go where the ocean is deep
There are giants out there in the canyons
And a good captain can't fall asleep
I've got bills to pay and children who need clothes
I know there's fish out there but where God only knows
They say these waters aren't what they used to be
But I've got people back on land who count on me
So if you see my Downeaster Alexa
And if you work with the rod and the reel
Tell my wife I am trolling Atlantis
And I still have my hands on the wheel
Now I drive my Downeaster Alexa
More and more miles from shore every year
Since they tell me I can't sell no stripers
And there's no luck in swordfishing here
I was a bayman like my father was before
Can't make a living as a bayman anymore
There ain't much future for a man who works the sea
But there ain't no island left for islanders like me
I Go to Extremes
(Billy Joel)
Call me a joker, call me a fool
Right at this moment I'm totally cool
Clear as a crystal, sharp as a knife
I feel like I'm in the prime of my life
Sometimes it feels like I'm going too fast
I don't know how long this feeling will last
Maybe it's only tonight
Darling I don't know why I go to extremes
Too high or too low there ain't no in-betweens
And if I stand or I fall
It's all or nothing at all
Darling I don't know why I go to extremes
Sometimes I'm tired, sometimes I'm shot
Sometimes I don't know how much more I've got
Maybe I'm headed over the hill
Maybe I've set myself up for the kill
Tell me how much do you think you can take
Until the heart in you is starting to break?
Sometimes it feels like it will
Darling I don't know why I go to extremes
Too high or too low there ain't no in-betweens
You can be sure when I'm gone
I won't be out there too long
Darling I don't know why I go to extremes
Out of the darkness, into the light
Leaving the scene of the crime
Either I'm wrong or I'm perfectly right every time
Sometimes I lie awake, night after night
Coming apart at the seams
Eager to please, ready to fight
Why do I go to extremes?
Darling I don't know why I go to extremes
Too high or too low there ain't no in-betweens
And if I stand or I fall
It's all or nothing at all
Darling I don't know why I go to extremes
No I don't know why I go to extremes
Too high or too low there ain't no in-betweens
You can be sure when I'm gone
I won't be out there too long
Darling I don't know why I go to extremes
Shameless
(Billy Joel)
Well I'm shameless when it comes to loving you
I'd do anything you want me to
I'd do anything at all
And I'm standing here for all the world to see
There ain't that much left of me
That has very far to fall
You know I'm not a man who has ever been
Insecure about the world I've been living in
I don't break easy, I have my pride
But if you need to be satisfied
I'm shameless, baby I don't have a prayer
Anytime I see you standing there
I go down upon my knees
And I'm changing, I swore I'd never compromise
But you convinced me otherwise
I'll do anything you please
You see in all my life I've never found
What I couldn't resist, what I couldn't turn down
I could walk away from anyone I ever knew
But I can't walk away from you
I have never let anything have this much control over me
Cause I worked too hard to call me life my own
Yes I made myself a world and it worked so perfectly
But it's your world now, I can't refuse
I never had so much to lose
I'm shameless...shameless
You know it should be easy for a man who's strong
To say he's sorry or admit when he's wrong
I've never lost anything I ever missed
But I've never been in love like this...
It's out of my hands
I'm shameless, I don't have the power now
But I don't want it anyhow
So I've got to let it go
I'm shameless, shameless as a man can be
You can make a total fool of me
I just wanted you to know
I am shameless
Shameless...
Shameless...
Storm Front
(Billy Joel)
Safe at harbor, everything is easy
Off to starboard, daylight comes up fast
Now I'm restless for the open water
Red flags are flying from the Coast Guard mast
They told me to stay, I heard all the information
I motored away and steered straight ahead
Though the weatherman said
CHORUS
There's a storm front coming (mood indigo)
White water running and the pressure is low
Storm front coming (mood indigo)
Small craft warning on the radio
I've been sailing a long time on this ocean
Man gets lonesome, all those years at sea
I've got a woman, my life should be easy
Most men hunger for the life I lead
The morning was gray, but I had the motivation
I drifted away and ran into more
Heavy weather off shore
CHORUS
We've got a low pressure system and a northeast breeze
We've got a falling barometer and rising seas
We've got the cumulonimbus and a possible gale
We've got a force nine blowing on the Beaufort scale
I'm still restless for the open water
Though she gives me everything I need
She asked me to stay, but I'd done my navigation
I drove her away, but I should have known
To stay tied up at home
CHORUS
Leningrad
(Billy Joel)
Viktor was born in the spring of '44
And never saw his father anymore
A child of sacrifice, a child of war
Another son who never had a father after Leningrad
Went off to school and learned to serve the state
Followed the rules and drank his vodka straight
The only way to live was drown the hate
A Russian life was very sad
And such was life in Leningrad
I was born in '49
A cold war kid in McCarthy time
Stop 'em all at the 38th Parallel
Blast those yellow reds to hell
And cold war kids were hard to kill
Under their desks in an air raid drill
Haven't they heard we won the war
What do they keep on fighting for?
Viktor was sent to some Red Army town
Served out his time, became a circus clown
The greatest happiness he'd ever found
Was making Russian children glad
And children lived in Leningrad
But children lived in Levittown
And hid in the shelters underground
Until the Soviets turned their ships around
And tore the Cuban missiles down
And in that bright October sun
We knew our childhood days were done
And I watched my friends go off to war
What do they keep on fighting for?
And so my child and I came to this place
To meet him eye to eye and face to face
He made my daughter laugh, then we embraced
We never knew what friends we had
Until we came to Leningrad
State of Grace
(Billy Joel)
There you go, slipping away into a state of grace
I know the look that comes across your face
It's so familiar to me
Here I am, trying to keep you in my line of sight
I'm never certain that you read me right
Sometimes you don't want to see
Here we are, both of us know we're in love
But that isn't always enough
I never could rise above it all, down I fall
But darling there you go, slipping away into a state of grace
Granted, this world is not a perfect place
Still it's the world that I'm in
Here I am talking while you don't hear a word I say
Knowing you're watching me from far away
Somewhere that I've never been
Don't you see, you lived a different life than me
It doesn't mean you have to be afraid of how
We're not the same, don't leave me now
But darling there you go, slipping away
How can I get you to stay where you are
Keep you for going too far
Holding you here is so hard to do...I'm losing you
And darling there you go, slipping away into a state of grace
Drifting away into your sacred place
Someplace that I've never been
There you go, slipping away, slipping away, into a state of grace
There you go, slipping away into a state of grace
There you go...drifting away...
When in Rome
(Billy Joel)
Well I see you in the morning
Putting on your pretty clothes
And I watch you do your makeup
Like they do in all those fashion shows
Then you turn to me so that I can see
If you put your self together right
Then you go away and you're gone all day
But I know you're coming home tonight
And when you're home, darling all you've got to be is you
But when in Rome, do as the Romans do
Well it's alright if you're tired when your day is done
You can see when you look at me, you're not the only one
It's a cold, cruel world for a working girl
But you can't let them see you cry
It's a fact of life, now a man and wife
Work full time to just get by
And when we're home all it's gonna be is me and you
But when in Rome, do as the Romans do
I've done some strange things I never thought I'd do before
But if the strain brings happiness, more or less...
Then I don't mind masquerading with all those other fools
I don't mind the games I'm playing,
Because I've learned the rules
And when times are tough, I've got just enough
If you're standing right by my side
Darling more and more I get hungry for
All the ways you keep me satisfied
On our own there ain't nothing that we can't get thru
But when in Rome, do as the Romans do
Then I don't mind masquerading with all those other fools
I don't mind the games I'm playing,
Because I've learned the rules
It doesn't matter when we're home, all alone
All we've got to be is me and you
On our own there ain't nothing that we can't get thru
But when in Rome, do as the Romans do
And So It Goes
(Billy Joel)
In every heart there is a room
A sanctuary safe and strong
To heal the wounds from lovers past
Until a new one comes along
I spoke to you in cautious tones
You answered me with no pretense
And still I feel I said too much
My silence is my self defense
And every time I've held a rose
It seems I only felt the thorns
And so it goes, and so it goes
And so will you soon I suppose
But if my silence made you leave
Then that would be my worst mistake
So I will share this room with you
And you can have this heart to break
And this is why my eyes are closed
It's just as well for all I've seen
And so it goes, and so it goes
And you're the only one who knows
So I would choose to be with you
That's if the choice were mine to make
But you can make decisions too
And you can have this heart to break
And so it goes, and so it goes
And you're the only one who knows