From the album Turnstiles (1976)
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Words and Music by Billy Joel
They say that these are not the best of times But they're the only times I've ever known And I believe there is a time for meditation In cathedrals of our own Now, I have seen that sad surrender in my lover's eyes And I can only stand apart and sympathize For we are always what our situations hand us It's either sadness or euphoria So we'll argue and we'll compromise And realize that nothing's ever changed For all our mutual experience, Our separate conclusions are the same Now we are forced to recognize our inhumanity Our reason coexists with our insanity And though we choose between reality and madness It's either sadness or euphoria How thoughtlessly we dissipate our energies Perhaps we don't fulfill each other's fantasies And as we stand upon the ledges of our lives, With our respective similarities It's either sadness or euphoria Video I made for the song with famous photos from the 1960-1970s.
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Live version (audio only) from a 1976 concert at The Bottom Line (New York).
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From a concert at the Capitol Center (Passaic, NJ) October 2, 1976.
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Live version (audio only) from a 1977 concert on WIOQ (Philadelphia).
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Live version (audio only) from a 1977 concert at Nassau Coliseum (New York).
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Live version from "Songs In The Attic" (1981) (audio only).
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Live performance from Farm Aid in 1985.
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Excerpt from the Shades of Grey documentary with commentary from Billy and Phil Ramone (1993).
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At a MasterClass in 1995, Billy plays the song and then explains how he was inspired to write it.
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Live in Philadelphia, February 18, 1998, good quality audience shot video.
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This is from one of Billy's Masterclass sessions at Irvine Auditorium at UPenn in 2001, aired on A&E Network.
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A great live version from 2008 at the National Press Club DC. Billy also gave an interesting hour long interview, answering audience questions too. See it here.
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Billy performs the song Live at Shea Stadium (2008).
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Billy discusses "Summer, Highland Falls" on the Howard Stern show in 2010.
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Billy performs "Summer, Highland Falls" at a Master Class in 2014, and then discusses how the music was about manic depression, before he even wrote the lyrics.
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