Deceptive love and denied endings: tropes in the music of Billy Joel. Issue 3 (12th September 2018) - Atkinson, Sean
Abstract: The music of Billy Joel is long overdue for prolonged attention from the scholarly field. As Walter Everett has acknowledged (2000), Joel's music is often more in line with common-practice systems than with popular genres, and when combined with his intuitive understanding of numerous popular styles, makes for a rich trove of harmonic interest. One of the common-practice devices Joel utilises effectively is the evaded cadence (also called a deceptive motion). His use of this harmonic motion reveals two tropes in his music: Deceptive Love describes the complicated nature of love in 'She's Got a Way' and 'She's Always a Woman', while Denied Ending describes the unfinished and unresolved quality at the end of 'Miami 2017'. Uncovering these tropes in Joel's songs leads to a better understanding of the lyrics and the harmonic progressions that underlie them.