One Final Serenade: Songs of Billy Joel
From The Bridge (1986)
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A video for "Running On Ice" with clips from various videos or movies including the seminal film "Koyaanisqatsi" (Life Out of Balance) by Godfrey Reggio. Koyaanisqatsi is © IRE, 2013. All rights reserved.
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I could never understand why the urban attitude
Is so superior In a world of high rise ambition Most people's motives are ulterior Billy starts off The Bridge with the frenetic "Running On Ice." This is sort of "Pressure" part 2, as the song is about the pressures and anxieties of modern life, and how one can never seem to get ahead of the game. It's a theme also found in "Close to the Borderline" from Glass Houses. The song may have seemed edgy at the time though sounds somewhat dated today. It has a definite 1980s feel to it with its heavy use of synthesizers. Billy has said that he originally wrote the song with Sting in mind, and it does sound like a Sting song (here is a video of Sting singing Billy's "Big Man on Mulberry Street" from 2014 in concert). Apparently, Billy, Sting, Don Henley, and others had kicked around the idea of forming a pop supergroup similar to the Travelling Wilburys but with a jazz bent that would be called Pork Pie Hat, which is also the name of a Charles Mingus song. Billy talks about it here at the The New Yorker Festival in 2015. I have never heard "Running On Ice" played anywhere, not on the radio, on TV, or live, until it was used in an episode of the television program The Office in 2011 (the hilarious "Threat Level Midnight" episode). And here is Billy doing "Running On Ice" from a concert in 2005. Vertical Divider
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There's a lot of tension in this town
I know it's building up inside of me I've got all the symptoms and the side effects Of city life anxiety I could never understand why the urban attitude Is so superior In a world of high rise ambition Most people's motives are ulterior Sometimes I feel as though I'm running on ice Paying the price too long Kind of get the feeling that I'm running on ice Where did my life go wrong I'm a cosmopolitan sophisticate Of culture and intelligence The culmination of technology And civilized experience But I'm carrying the weight of all the useless junk A modern man accumulates I'm a statistic in a system That a civil servant dominates And all that means is that I'm running on ice Caught in the vise so strong I'm slipping and sliding, cause I'm running on ice Where did my life go wrong You've got to run You've got to run As fast as I can climb A new disaster every time I turn around As soon as I get one fire put out There's another building burning down They say this highway's going my way But I don't know where it's taking me It's a bad waste, a sad case, a rat race It's breaking me I get no traction cause I'm running on ice It's taking me twice as long I get a bad reaction cause I'm running on ice Where did my life go wrong You've got to run, you've got to run Running on ice, running on ice Running on ice, running on ice |