One Final Serenade: Songs of Billy Joel
Now it's apparent, now it's a fact
So marshal your forces for another attack You were so young and naive I know it's hard to believe But now it shouldn't surprise you at all "Surprises" is another Beatles-like song, circa late 1960s, though less accessible than some of the other songs on The Nylon Curtain. The vocals again sound much like John Lennon but lyrically the song is somewhat obtuse. Well, some of The Beatles' lyrics are also obtuse ("I Am The Walrus") but the lyrics to "Surprises" are less visual.
Billy has stated that the song arose from his 1982 motorcycle accident and the accident's aftermath in which he was hospitalized for weeks and his wife Elizabeth (now former wife) came to him in the hospital with her attorney, shedding "crocodile tears," asking him to sign papers that would turn over most everything to her. This was at a time when he was at his most vulnerable (based on Fred Schruers' 2014 biography on Billy Joel). Billy realized the marriage, which was already on the rocks, was ending. The lyrics reflect this breakup and how one should not really be surprised when life hits you upside the head and people show their true colors and betray you. As Schruers writes: "[t]he slow-march-time, Lennonesque ballad, feature a baleful, hornlike synth accompaniment, would reverberate with a kind of despair -- in effect the tear-stained letter marking the end of the marriage." The line "Don't look now but you have changed/Your best friends wouldn't tell you" is very revealing. Unfortunately for Billy, he had begun to entrust more of his business affairs to Frank Weber, Elizabeth's brother, and Frank would also later betray him. As Billy stated years later, "I hooked up with the Borgias! What a family to pick!" (from Schruers' book). There are some serious Billy Joel fans who to point to "Surprises" as a brilliant song, but I would not go that far. Still, like most of the songs on The Nylon Curtain it is a rich and densely layered recording that one appreciates more and more with repeated listening. |
Don't get excited, don't say a word
Nobody noticed, nothing was heard It was committed discreetly It was handled so neatly And it shouldn't surprise you at all, you know Break all the records, burn the cassettes I'd be lying if I told you that I had no regrets There were so many mistakes And what a difference it makes But still it shouldn't surprise you at all, you know I said it shouldn't surprise you at all, you know Don't look now but you have changed Your best friends wouldn't tell you Now it's apparent, now it's a fact So marshal your forces for another attack You were so young and naive I know it's hard to believe But now it shouldn't surprise you at all, you know No it shouldn't surprise you at all, you know What has it cost you, what have you won The sins of the fathers are the sins of the sons It was always within you. it will always continue But it shouldn't surprise you at all, you know I said it shouldn't surprise you at all, you know Vertical Divider
"Surprises" was the B-side to "You're Only Human" from 1984's Greatest Hits. © 1982 Sony Music Entertainment.
Billy on "Surprises" from SiriusXM radio. 
Rolling Stone cover (1982)
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