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Daniel Warren
Billy Joel’s “And So It Goes,” is one of the truly great, yet underrated ballads of the late
20th century because it is so unashamedly raw in its emotion and delivery. Joel himself admitted
that he thought it was his least appreciated song.1 The singer/songwriter marries his music and
lyrics to deliver the song in a deeply moving way; neither the music nor lyrics would be remotely
as powerful if played or spoken apart from the other. In this paper, I will examine themes and
emotions portrayed through the music and lyrics, providing examples of how this song
demonstrates an evolution in thoughts and feelings and how, ultimately, this song reflects the
reflect upon, and eventually find peace in seeing the relationship end. I will begin by providing a
summary of the lyrics, indicating major themes, and I will then provide examples of their
Joel opens his lyrics by admitting that, on some level, humans construct emotional walls
to guard themselves from pain and suffering by never having to make themselves truly
vulnerable. He illustrates this with the opening text “In every heart there is a room, a sanctuary
safe and strong.” This enforces the idea that, even in what may be the most intimate of
protection and safety. In the event of heartbreak or struggle, there is a still a haven within one’s
self to find solace. He continues the next verse and introduces the listener to a more concrete
understanding of what the song may truly be about: while protecting himself, he is opening up
1
Joel, Billy. "Billy Joel Visits the Howard Stern Show." Interview by Howard Stern. Sound Cloud. November 16, 2010.
2
while he has had relationships end before, this one hurts the most. Throughout the remainder of
the song, the listener hears the narrator admit his pain, confess his journey to making peace with
that pain, and reveal that he is willing to love again despite the risk of being hurt.
I will now examine how the music and lyrics of this song are intimately connected, using
transcribed excerpts of Joel’s performance.2 It opens with hymn-style (almost dirge-like) solo
piano, and the listener should be able to hear that the piano is hardly an accompaniment piece,
but rather just as much a part of the song as the story itself. Joel uses the melodic and harmonic
movement to mimic and thereby reflect the spectrum of his emotions throughout each phrase
and, subsequently, the entire song. As outlined in Figure 1, the lyrics at the beginning of the
second verse begin rather spritely with “I spoke to you” but immediately shows a small
emotional withdrawal with “in cautious tones;” this gesture is accompanied by a sudden move to
a minor chord as an aural suggestion of a darker theme. In Figure 2, we see new lyrics over the
same phrase and harmonic gesture; this gesture is used twice in each verse to reinforce Joel’s
2
Joel, Billy, and Bob Leso. The Billy Joel keyboard book, 10-15. Milwaukee, WI: Hal Leonard Pub. Corp., 1993.
3
As we can see by examining the score, the music demonstrates time and rhythmic
instability. Rather than playing and singing in common time, Billy Joel chooses 34, a time
signature with only one truly strong beat. However, he also makes sporadic transitions between
playing tied triplets and dotted eighth/sixteenths, two rhythm patterns that can also lend
themselves to feelings of instability. The weaker time signature, the sporadic tradeoff between
these two rhythms, and Joel’s personally tentative pacing during his performance truly speaks to
the insecurity of the singer.3 Above, in Figures 1 and 2, we see two passages that we may
otherwise expect to mimic each other, at least melodically and rhythmically, bear a rather stark
rhythmic difference. Below, in Figure 3, we see a similarly distinct tradeoff between duple and
triple rhythms as an aural representation that the singer feels vulnerable and unstable.
Before continuing with my next annotated example, I would like to also bring to question
the song’s chorus, or lack thereof. In addition to rhythmic differences, the songwriter also uses
what would be the chorus to demonstrate insecurity. The traditional chorus is lyric-invariant: it
3
Joel, Billy, performer. "And So It Goes." Originally written 1983. In Storm Front. Columbia., 1989, CD.
4
is typically strong and unaltered, and it gives the song an anchor.4 However, in this song, the
“chorus” never repeats its lyrics in true chorus fashion and thus, never gives the listener a well-
founded base. For the purposes of this annotation, I will refer to the chorus-like sections as
“Chorus 1” or “Chorus 2” with the understanding that, while they possess characteristics of a
chorus in that they a) come after verses, b) end with a refrain containing the title, and c) fall
where one might expect a chorus to fall within the layout of the song, they are textually different,
A few particularly interesting points come to light in the Chorus 1 between the more
structured verses that continue to paint a clearer picture of the singer’s past pain. He sings, “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.” In this interlude, Joel hints that he has been hurt before. The rose is a
clear analogy that, any time he has been in love, he has only come out hurt and in pain. Here, we
have a clear allusion to an earlier image: the wounds of lovers past. It is also worth noting that he
ends both choruses with “and so it goes,” because, in this title line, we hear the narrator
advancing the story by saying, in more eloquent terms, “That’s the way life is, and I’m okay with
that.” He further alludes to this point at the end of Verse 3 with the lyrics, “And you can have
this heart to break.” These indicate the evolution of the song itself as the narrator is coming to
understand that, while pain is a necessary part of life, it is also worth the risk for something
great.
4
"Form in pop/rock music – Formal functions – Open Music Theory." Open Music Theory. Accessed November 17, 2017.
http://openmusictheory.com/popRockForm-functions.
5
Lastly, I would like to further address the significance of title line, “and so it goes.” Each
time we hear these lyrics at the end of the chorus, they are followed by a tagline whose harmony
^
ends on a Half Cadence from a secondary dominant and melody that ends on scale degree 5.
This half cadence lends itself to a feeling of forward motion, that the story, and subsequently the
song, is somehow incomplete; this is yet another example of how Billy Joel carefully binds his
music and lyrics to communicate a point. Furthermore, the final time we hear these words, they
are tagged with a Perfect Authentic Cadence, finally giving the song the closure that the poet,
and ostensibly the listener, has been seeking the entire time. In Figures 5 and 6, we can see how
each statement of this melody is used to initially withhold but, as highlighted in Figure 7,
eventually allow a resolution of the melody and harmony, and closure of the lyric struggle
Through analysis and examples, I have explored how Billy Joel’s “And So It Goes” is an
incredibly powerful song in which both the music and lyrics play a significant and intimately
bound role. We see that the singer/songwriter uses each to support the other as he narrates his
journey to coping with lost love. Along with being a skilled singer and songwriter, Billy Joel is a
highly accomplished pianist, so it would stand to reason that the techniques of musical sensitivity
that he demonstrates in this tune would be present in more of his music. Using the material
presented in this analysis as a starting point, I would encourage further theorists to investigate
Joel’s other works and examine, more deeply, how his music and lyrics demonstrate a synergy
Bibliography
"Form in pop/rock music – Formal functions – Open Music Theory." Open Music Theory.
Accessed November 17, 2017. http://openmusictheory.com/popRockForm-functions.
Joel, Billy, and Bob Leso, 1993. The Billy Joel keyboard book, 10-15. Milwaukee, WI: Hal
Leonard Pub. Corp.
Joel, Billy. November 16, 2010. "Billy Joel Visits the Howard Stern Show." Interview by
Howard Stern. Sound Cloud.
Joel, Billy, 1989. "And So It Goes." Originally written 1983. In Storm Front.
Columbia. CD.