Day 9 - The River of Dreams

Billy Joel

1993

Disclaimer: All perspectives, opinions, and memories in this entry are mine and mine alone. Some content is rugged, raw, and - sometimes - NSFW, but it's all authentic and included with purpose.

Why It’s On The List:

Don’t really have a compelling “reason” for it being on the list other than (A) it’s a great song in its own right that deserves to be here and (B) I’ve got one story that I always laugh about when I hear this track. My girlfriend at the time (that would later be my fiance) was studying dance in college so I obviously got to know her friends and classmates year to year. One semester they put on a dance show where each student had to choreograph their own piece to any music they wanted. There was one girl in the class that I had met when she was a freshman and she was a cute girl, but definitely looked and seemed very young. Since we attended different colleges at the time, I hadn’t seen this girl between the summer of her freshman and sophomore year or during the new semester yet.  So we are at the show and this girl had set her dance piece to “River of Dreams.” She comes out and she looked a LOT more mature and grown up since the last time I had seen her. I leaned over to my girlfriend and whispered, “Is that so and so?!” She said yes. A few seconds later, I lean over and said, “Wow, she really grew up over the summer!” My girlfriend responded, “Yeah, she looks good.”  *Quick Sidebar - In the years since the incident, I have maintained that I was truly shocked by this girls transformation in such a short amount of time but I can totally see how this appeared differently in the moment as I continued* “I can’t believe how good she looks,” I said a few beats later. “Uhhhh huhhhh…” my girlfriend responded, now growing irritated. Lacking all self-awareness, I wouldn’t let it go. “I just can’t get over…” and that’s when I had gone too far. My girlfriend was no longer whispering and raised her voice DURING the still on-going performance “You want me to see if I can get you a date with her??”  As everyone in the audience looked around at us, I suddenly realized the error of my ways. Like I said, I still laugh every time I hear this song. Listen to "The River of Dreams" here:

Favorite Line:
This is one of those songs I wish I could play so that I could entertain at dinner parties just for the piano throughout. 
Also love the epic long pause between this bridge and chorus:

"I'm not sure about a life after this
God knows I've never been a spiritual man
Baptized by the fire, I wade into the river
That runs to the promised land
(PAUSE) In the middle of the night..."

If You Liked This Song...
Billy Joel is on this list quite a few times but there were still a bunch of his songs that didn't make the cut:
- Vienna
- Ballad of Billy the Kid
- You're My Home
- This Night
- For the Longest Time