Say Goodbye To Hollywood
Song: Say Goodbye To Hollywood
Album: Turnstiles (1976)
Last Friday afternoon my wife e-mailed me to say she’d be working late. This meant I’d have time to do my favorite thing; hang out with my dog and listen to records. Since I was scheduled to run 18 miles on Saturday (I’m training for the LA marathon) I was also planning to eat a lot of candy. On the way home I stopped at the store bought some snacks and went home for a one man record party. Yes, this is my idea of a good time; I’ve found as I’ve gotten older that there’s nothing rarer and more valuable than free time to do nothing at all.
When I arrived home I was greeted by my dog, which is always great and an unexpected enormous bill in the mail that made me very angry. The record party was put on hold as I made phone calls and emailed people to figure out why someone was asking me for money. Then I ate all of the candy but there was no joy in it. Here’s a lesson for you: never eat candy when you are filled with anger, even righteous anger because you’ll just need more candy later.
When the phone calls were done and the hate candy was all gone I looked over at my records and pulled out Billy Joel’s Turnstiles. I didn’t want to listen to Billy Joel but since Turnstiles was the next record up in my year of Billy Joel I figured I might as well jump in.
I dropped the needle on side one. I knew that “Say Goodbye to Hollywood” opened the album but I couldn’t remember how it went. Then I heard that drum beat that starts the song, that unmistakable big beat that Hal Blaine laid down as part of Phil Spector’s Wrecking Crew on The Ronettes Be My Baby. Everything about that Ronettes song is great but it’s the drums that have always stuck with me so hearing them kick off “Say Goodbye To Hollywood” immediately pulled me into the song. I realized about ten seconds later that the resemblance to the Phil Spector sound wasn’t accidental. Yes the song sounds like a that Ronettes song; that’s exactly the point.
Billy Joel, who also produced this record, wrote “Say Goodbye to Hollywood” after moving back to New York from LA. What better way to say goodbye than to pay loving homage to the records Phil Spector produced in Hollywood? This song recreates the Spector sound using Billy Joel’s own Wrecking Crew, also known as his touring band, which appears on record here for the first time. To take the Phil Spector homage even further, Billy Joel says that he wrote this song for Ronnie Spector or at least with her in mind (she did record her own version many years later).
I realized when it was over that not only do I like this song, I have always liked this song. I’ve always know it was a Billy Joel song but in my mind it’s always stood off on its own. In this sense “Say Goodbye to Hollywood” is the “Hungry Heart” or the “Lay Lady Lay” of the Billy Joel catalog to this point. It’s the song that doesn’t sound like the others that even a guy like me who doesn’t like Billy Joel can get behind.
On a semi related note did you know that Springsteen originally wrote “Hungry Heart” for The Ramones? Seriously he did. I wouldn’t lie to you.
Anyway I like this song, a lot. I probably hadn’t heard it for 20 years but hearing it on Friday night reminded me of driving with my father in his old Camaro when I was no more than seven years old. He had a rule that said you couldn’t get out of the car in the middle of a song and I remember sitting at the curb in front of our house one afternoon until “Say Goodbye To Hollywood” ended. It was a good song in my father’s car and three decades later it’s a good song at my house.
