Recalling the Tokens and sweet doo-wop, the title track of Billy Joel's 15th release is his most delectable single yet. A student of pop from Tin Pan Alley to McCartney to Motown, Joel's great whenever he waxes retro. But his lyrics about searching for faith contrast movingly with the music's bounce. A fretful persona, who since "Allentown" (1982) has often worried on a global scale (war, politics, economics), the singer-pianist now philosophizes more intimately. Consisting of first-person musings rather than his signature story songs, "River of... Read More
Dreams" focuses on family, growing older, passing a world on to the next generation.
The orchestral "Lullabye (Goodnight, My Angel)," the jazzy "Minor Variation," the elegiac "Famous Last Words" -- on tunes like