Billy Joel has had plenty of career highlights, from winning five Grammy Awards to selling over 150 million albums to being inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. However, one of his most impressive accomplishments is playing Madison Square Garden 150 times. Many of those concerts came from a 10-year residency, which ran from 2014 to 2024.
The legendary singer-songwriter has announced a new concert film called “The 100th: Live at Madison Square Garden (The Complete Concert),” which captures the 100th consecutive performance of the run on March 28th, 2024. The concert was aired on CBS two weeks later, but the new physical release will include 11 songs not aired on the broadcast.
Joel has given fans a sneak peek of the project with the night’s version of his hit, “My Life.” The song first appeared as the third track of his album “52nd Street,” which won the Grammy for Album of the Year in 1978.
How ‘Ode to Joy’ Transitions Into ‘My Life’
If you listen to the video, you may hear something unexpected. The song kicks off with the bassist hammering out the familiar octaves that shape the “My Life” groove. However, when Joel and the saxophonist join in, they play the theme to the fourth movement of Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9, commonly known as “Ode to Joy.”
Why Billy Joel Loves Beethoven
Even in a rock context, the melody evokes the triumph of the human spirit. That is a common attribute to Joel’s music, which is known for its blue-collar perspective and workingman’s approach. It makes sense, then, that Joel cites Beethoven as his favorite composer.
“From early on, I felt Beethoven. I still think he is the greatest composer who ever lived. To me, he was the most human composer,” he said in an interview with Far Out Magazine. “With Beethoven, I hear the stops and the starts and the friction and the struggles that he had when he was writing. He had to struggle. The man was deaf when he wrote most of this stuff.”
How ‘My Life’ Moves From D Major Into Unexpected Territory
Joel then signals the band to begin the standard intro melody for “My Life.” Similar to the Romantic composer, the part has a simple yet joyful feel; however, it has a much different approach. “My Life” is in the key of D major. The intro melody, which also appears between the verse and chorus, quickly shifts out of the diatonic realm. Joel takes us from D to a C9, to Ebmaj7/F, to Bb.
As fast as that seems to happen, it happens in a smooth way thanks to the octave bass notes in the piano’s left hand. The move from D to C twists our ear, but then the bass notes move in the circle of fifths, giving us an anchor to keep it from sounding disjointed. Beethoven also used the circle of fifths and secondary dominant chords to make large leaps.
By opening with Symphony No. 9 and settling into one of his most durable grooves, Joel reminds us that “My Life” is both a personal statement and a composition that’s built to last. It’s a fitting snapshot of an artist who has always taken working-class directness and elevated it to something grand.
