Well, let’s see. Billy and Leonard are both singer-songwriters who have a special way with words.
Otherwise, perhaps not a whole lot. Cohen’s lugubrious tones are in contrast to Joel’s more upbeat drive.
I was procrastinating last night in one of my favorite ways—perusing You Tube—when I came across two videos that constitute a bridge between Joel and Cohen (and here are some other bridges between the two).
The first is Billy Joel’s “Piano Man:”
The second, Cohen’s “Closing Time,” cannot be embedded. So you’ll have to go to You Tube to watch it.
They’re both set in bars, of course. But the similarities don’t stop there. They’re both about the attempt to forget troubles in a throng of revelers, the pursuit of fun that can partake of desperation. And they’re both about the desire to forget loneliness, and the way it can sometimes pursue a person even in a crowd. Maybe especially in a crowd.
The difference is in the tone. Cohen emphasizes the dark within which a bit of light shines, while Joel sees light with overtones of dark. My guess is that Cohen was influenced in subtle ways by the earlier Joel piece when he made his own video. It’s almost a tribute to the first one, a deeply noir version of an already-slightly-noir vision.
And note also, please, the predominance of polka-dots in the Billy Joel video. The waitresses wear polka-dot outfits, and there’s a woman in the crowd with a black and white polka-dot blouse. Is this, perhaps, the origin of Cohen’s mysterious and evocative image in the chorus of “Closing Time?”
Oh the women tear their blouses off
and the men they dance on the polka-dots
It’s CLOSING TIME
Somehow those lines always call to my mind an amusing flamenco dance. A man in black, with a dancer’s upright and elegant posture, dramatically stomping on—a polka-dot blouse.
Before researching this post, I didn’t know much about Billy Joel except for his ill-fated marriage to and divorce from Uptown Girl Christie Brinkley. But his Wikipedia entry reassures me that Mr. Joel has managed to land on his feet, at least for now.
Joel seems to have gone the Salman Rushdie route, and I’m not referring to fatwas. I’m referring to Salman’s (now-defunct) marriage to Padma Lakshmi.
Here are Rushdie and Lakshmi in happier days:
And here are Joel and current wife Katie Lee:
And, to top off the remarkable resemblance, both Lakshmi and Katie Lee are cookbook authors. Here’s Padma hard at work. And here’s Katie Lee talking about kitchens. What’s more (and I hope you all are duly impressed with the depth of my sleuthing here), Padma replaced Katie a few years ago on “Top Chef.”
The plot—and the stew—thickens.
And so does my procrastination. Time for me to quit the free-associating and get back to whatever else I should be doing.
Have a good weekend. And watch out for those bars—and polka-dots.
Previously a lifelong Democrat, born in New York and living in New England, surrounded by liberals on all sides, I've found myself slowly but surely 
April 4th, 2008 at 3:51 pm
Padma is just mind-blowingly gorgeous.
April 4th, 2008 at 4:10 pm
I will watch out for those bars. And I’ll go in ‘em once I’m off call.
Also, Billy Joel could drink the two of them under the table.
April 4th, 2008 at 4:44 pm
Drop the free and start with the flee-associating already.
April 4th, 2008 at 4:54 pm
Wow. Interesting observation about Cohen coming from a dark place and finding a sliver of light there. Interesting speculation about polka dots. And I’m so glad I heard this new to me iteration of Cohen’s voice.
As much as I read your blog, I’m not a big music person, and apparently skipped right past your last year’s post about Cohen. I confess I had, for many years, thought Leonard Cohen was Leonard Bernstein. Heh.
I happened into a study of Cohen – just last month – as I tried to make sense of the lyrics to “Hallelujah”
http://theendzone.blogspot.com/2008/03/okeefe-purple-hallelujah.html
and, later, when my brother encouraged me to look at “Suzanne”
http://theendzone.blogspot.com/2008/03/okeeffe-tree-trunks.html
I might be listening to “Closing Time” for a couple days, trying let the dark lyrics and the sliver of light sink in. “Closing Time” is really a country music song. Cohen maybe just doesn’t fully realize it.
Oh, and, as much as I’ve enjoyed the Padma pics … as a Texan in good standing … I’m all over anyone named Katie Lee who: writes a cookbook, possesses that smile, has the bootylicious southern trailer park charm, and also has the trailer-park-but-doesn’t-know-it Billy Joel for a boyfriend. And I’m not talking down about trailer parks. To the contrary. Trailer park people are MY PEOPLE – which is why I think Katie Lee has a lifeforce which makes Padma look like a frail willow. I’ve been in some LOVELY trailer parks.
April 4th, 2008 at 6:49 pm
Nothing short of extreme torture could make me click onto any version of “Piano Man.”
My loathing of this doggerel in both tune and word knows no bounds. If it comes on the car radio, I curse loudly and hit any button just to make.it.stop!
Same for Chapin’s “Cat’s In the Cradle.” Ugh!
A close third: Every Move You Make. Gah!
They all make me see spots before my eyes…
.
April 4th, 2008 at 9:43 pm
Well that was about half an hour doing nothing but listening to different versions of Hallelujah.
Well spent.
April 5th, 2008 at 7:32 am
Joan – it’s not spots, it’s polka-dots!
April 5th, 2008 at 1:05 pm
gcothatn–Besides the fiddler (as in “He who calls the tune must pay the–”), I can’t see how this is even close to “Country”.
I think the big defference in theme is that “Closing Time” is a musing on the spiritual emptiness of the party life, whereas “Piano Man” is more a sociological approach.
Plus. as has been mentioned, we’ve heard “Piano Man” so many times we can’t hear it anymore.
April 5th, 2008 at 2:56 pm
Thanks for another intriguing introduction and comparative review!
Between Joel and Cohen, in my shallowly-based opinion, it’s Cohen by several lengths, and he aged more effectively.
April 5th, 2008 at 3:12 pm
Ozripus: I much prefer Cohen, as well. But I like Joel for what he is, which is a consummate pop music writer of songs that are far from bubble-gummy stuff.
Cohen is primarily a poet who writes music, whereas Joel is a musician who sometimes gives us a bit of poetry. There’s room in this world to admire both.
April 6th, 2008 at 1:47 am
Something else they both have in common is that they were both ripped off for considerable coin by people they had trusted with their financial affairs. In Joel’s case, he kept his ex-wife on as his business manager. Her brother then embezzled a considerable part of Billy’s savings. With Cohen, his manager and former girlfriend stole about $5 million from him, forcing him to return to work at the age of 72. Moral of the story: keep the exes away from the loot.
Special trivia about Billy (born 1949): his father was a classical pianist and Jewish refugee from Nazi Germany who divorced Billy’s mother in 1960 and returned to Vienna. He started another family and Billy has a half-brother who has conducted the Vienna Symphony.
April 6th, 2008 at 4:12 pm
Neo: I understand, and agree with your evaluation.
But, for this old man, what is that “bubble-gummy stuff”?
[and, yes, I know the ? goes inside the “, but I think that is stupid in a case such as this)