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Daniel Warren

Theory 576 Final Paper

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

dissolution of a romantic relationship and the singer/songwriter’s attempts to grapple with,

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

specific relationships with the music.

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

relationships, a person may choose to hold on to a small portion of themselves as emotional

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

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Joel, Billy. "Billy Joel Visits the Howard Stern Show." Interview by Howard Stern. Sound Cloud. November 16, 2010.

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emotionally, eventually revealing the dissolution of a romantic relationship. He implies that,

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

apprehensions to reveal his deeper feelings.

Fig. 1 Beginning of Verse 2 Fig. 2 Middle of Verse 2

2
Joel, Billy, and Bob Leso. The Billy Joel keyboard book, 10-15. Milwaukee, WI: Hal Leonard Pub. Corp., 1993.
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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.

Fig. 3 Beginning of Verse 4

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

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Joel, Billy, performer. "And So It Goes." Originally written 1983. In Storm Front. Columbia., 1989, CD.
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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,

suggesting that the song does not contain a true chorus.

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.

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Fig. 4 Beginning of Chorus 1

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

communicated within the tune.

Fig. 5 End of Chorus 1 Fig. 6 End of Chorus 2

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Fig. 7 End of the Song

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

similar to that of this song.

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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.