The Best Song From Every Billy Joel Album, Period

You've always wondered: What's the best song from every Billy Joel album? Wonder no more.

With a career spanning over fifty years, Billy Joel remains one of the highest-selling and most-revered musicians to come out of the American singer-songwriter boom of the late 20th century. He's about to play his 50th consecutive show at Madison Square Garden, and he doesn't show signs of slowing down even as he stands on the precipice of seventy.

This year, his breakthrough album Piano Man turns 45 years old; his album 52nd Street hits 40, and his last (depending on who you ask) studio album River of Dreams celebrates its silver anniversary at the age of 25. So in this year of anniversaries, you may wonder: What is the best song on each Billy Joel album?

Let's take a look.

1971 - Cold Spring Harbor, "Tomorrow Is Today"

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Billy's 1970 suicide note -- written after the breakup of his two-piece prog-metal attempt Attila and during his desperate pining for his bandmate's wife -- became one of his more underrated tracks on Cold Spring Harbor. The first album from the piano man has a few songs that people now consider classics, such as "She's Got A Way" and "Everybody Loves You Now". But Tomorrow Is Today, featuring Billy's emotional vocals carrying simple yet eloquent lyrics over his masterful piano playing, stands as the prototype for every Joel song that followed it.

Catch the version from the original LP, which features a full orchestra.

1973 - Piano Man, "You're My Home"

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Many will say that "Piano Man" is the best song on Piano Man. Others will argue for "Captain Jack" or "The Ballad Of Billy The Kid". But a song that many fail to mention when it comes to naming the best song on Piano Man is "You're My Home", a Jim Croce-type song written by Billy as a Valentine's Day gift for his first wife, Elizabeth Small. During this time, Billy was living in Los Angeles, away from his home of Long Island. This gives "You're My Home" a deeper meaning, and although it contains corny lyrics like "instant pleasuredome", it does stand out among the usual hits from the album.

1974 - Streetlife Serenade - "Root Beer Rag"

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Streetlife Serenade came out during the end of Billy's trial run in California, and his desperation about getting back to the East Coast was starting to show. The third album of Billy's contains two instrumental tracks, and its biggest hit -- "The Entertainer" didn't make as much of a splash as its still-more-popular prequel. But while those instrumentals seem like odd ducks, "Root Beer Rag" still stands out as the best out of the two and the most fun out of the ten tracks on Streetlife Serenade. It shows off Billy's piano playing and his ability to craft a good song without lyrics, highlighting his chops as a composer. "Root Beer Rag" also poses a challenge to any aspiring pianist with its ragtime rhythm and quick jazzy riffs full of accidentals.

1976 - Turnstiles, "New York State of Mind"

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There's no doubt about this one. "New York State of Mind", one of Billy's instant classics, describes the singer's love for the city of his childhood. The saxophone work of Richie Cannata and the bluesy piano of Billy evoke images of New York even in the heads of those who've never heard of the Big Apple anywhere else. This song has long been part of the city's musical repertoire, along with Sinatra's "New York, New York"; Billy played it at The Concert for New York City after 9/11 and at 12-12-12, the concert following Hurricane Sandy. It always gives most New Yorkers a kick, even when the trains don't run or the one-dollar pizza shops start charging an extra quarter.

1977 - The Stranger - "Only The Good Die Young"

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On an album full of greats, it's hard to pick just one. But "Only The Good Die Young" -- Billy's bad-boy horndog song about picking up a good Catholic girl -- angered religious groups, who called for authorities to censor the song. That, of course, only made the track more popular, boosting Billy's popularity in rock-and-roll circles and driving audiences to see his shows. The controversy and popularity of the song haven't waned; it still shocks some ears, but it's remained a standard encore at each of his shows to date.

1978 - 52nd Street, "Stiletto"

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In 1978, Billy began to experiment more with the jazzier side of his sound, in order to honor the funk vibe building in the city at the time. "Stiletto" highlights that sound, alongside its preceding track "Zanzibar", with a memorable horn riff and a driving snap-filled beat that carries Billy's cutthroat lyrics of -- surprise, surprise -- a woman scorned. This song came out not long after Billy's divorce from Elizabeth, so you can hear the fresh intensity in his voice as he spits out the lyrics.

1980 - Glass Houses, "All For Lleyna"

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Glass Houses is the album many critics -- including Chuck Klostermann -- have praised, with some calling it the closest Billy every got to a pure rock album. It's true that Billy wrote Glass Houses in order to get with the growing punk and new wave scenes; "All For Lleyna" best showcases that shift in his musical style, with an angular and almost discordant arrangement that sounds like something David Byrne could've dreamed up. (Side note: The bare-bones music video shows the Billy Joel Band at its prime, although there's no Crystal Taliefero to back up the band on drums and vocals quite yet.)

1981 - Songs In The Attic, "Everybody Loves You Now"

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While Songs In The Attic is a collection of lesser-known tracks played live during the 1970s, it's a fantastic collection that need not be overlooked. The performance of Cold Spring Harbor's "Everybody Loves You Now" on this album shed a new light on the track, which brought people to wonder what happened to Billy's debut album. The owner of the master tapes -- Artie Ripp, who was responsible for the original album's mangled mastering -- therefore remixed Cold Spring Harbor without any help from Billy. The version of "Everybody Loves You Now" on the remix has fixed pitch, but lacks some of the original instrumentation. Still, the song remains a live favorite, even almost fifty years later.

1982 - The Nylon Curtain, "Allentown"

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As Bruce Springsteen was releasing Nebraska -- his testament to American bleakness -- Billy was releasing The Nylon Curtain, a chronicle of Baby Boomer anxiety in the early Reagan years. "Allentown" showcased this anxiety as an on-the-nose story about desperate steel workers in the dying Rust Belt post-Vietnam. "Allentown" remains an anthem of blue-collar America and a live favorite, but it also stands as one of the more poignant songs Billy played during his historic 1987 concerts in Moscow and Leningrad. On the Kontsert album, Billy introduces the song like this:

"This song is about young people living in the Northeast of America. Their lives are miserable because the steel factories are closing down. They desperately want to leave... but they stay because they were brought up to believe that things were going to get better. Maybe that sounds familiar."

1983 - An Innocent Man, "Tell Her About It"

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In 1983, Billy was at the height of his fame, selling out venues and records faster than he could book or make them. He was also dating supermodels like Elle Macpherson and his soon-to-be wife Christie Brinkley. Because the 34-year-old songwriter felt like a kid again, he started writing songs in the styles of music from his childhood. "Tell Her About It" is a Motown-type jam in the style of The Temptations, pulling out all the stops of 1950s doo-wop and R&B to create a hit that still pops off after 35 years. It's a testament to the timelessness of the era of the birth of rock and roll.

1985 - Greatest Hits Vol. I & II, "You're Only Human (Second Wind)"

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Billy released his first Greatest Hits album in 1985; it's gone on to sell over eleven million copies to date. The collection had classics like "Piano Man" and "Just The Way You Are", but it also including two brand-new singles: "The Night Is Still Young" and "You're Only Human (Second Wind)". The latter stands out because it mirrors "Tomorrow Is Today"; while "Tomorrow Is Today" showcased Billy's despair, "You're Only Human" addresses that despair and shows that there is light on the other side. The music video nods to Billy's story and "It's A Wonderful Life", with Billy acting as guardian angel to a broken-hearted teen.

1986 - The Bridge, "Baby Grand"

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The Bridge was Billy's album of songs about crossing over into middle age and maturity. But it also stood as an album of collaborations with big names in the music business. "Getting Closer" featured the vocals of Cyndi Lauper, while "Temptation" showcases the Hammond organ skills of Steve Winwood. But "Baby Grand" landed the legendary Ray Charles for a duet with Billy, creating a delight for any piano man fan.

1989 - Storm Front, "Leningrad"

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While Storm Front has plenty of higher-intensity tracks for consideration -- "I Go To Extremes", the title track, the seventh-grade history project song -- "Leningrad" stands as a masterpiece of late-Soviet sympathy. In the song, Billy compares himself to Viktor Razinov, a clown whom he met during his 1987 shows in the USSR. Billy sympathizes not with the actions of the Soviet Union, but with the people harmed by those actions who simply wanted a better life for their families. The ending of the song -- a statement of friendship -- stands as a wish for more peaceful times at the end of the Cold War.

1993 - River of Dreams, "All About Soul"

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River of Dreams -- Billy's final studio album of original rock music -- stands out as a more spiritual entry in his discography. "All About Soul" drives that theme high over center field, showing Billy trying to get right with himself, with a "stronger emotion", and with his family. Though the river has dragged Billy through some rocky patches over the last quarter of a century, he still conjures up the power of love and the power of healing with every performance of this song.

You may be right; I may be crazy. Comment with your Billy Joel favorites, or whether or not you agree with the songs in the list.