All your past sins are since past
You should be sleeping It's all right, sleep tight Through the long night with me As with his other albums, Billy closes out Glass Houses with a ballad "Through The Long Night." This is another underappreciated song. It is one of Billy's most tender and vulnerable songs. Unlike his other song lyrics which tend to be very literal or tell a story, the lyrics in "Through The Long Night" are more impressionistic. The song opens with: "the cold hands, the sad eyes, the dark Irish silence." Maybe this is a foreshadowing of the type of lyrics and songs that would appear in Billy's next studio album, The Nylon Curtain.
Picasso's "La Reve" (1932). See discussion (right) and in video (right).
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The cold hands, the sad eyes
The dark Irish silence It's so late, but I'll wait Through the long night with you With you The warm tears, the bad dreams The soft trembling shoulders The old fears, but I'm here Through the long night with you With you Oh, what has it cost you I almost lost you A long, long time ago Oh, you should have told me But you had to bleed to know All your past sins are since past You should be sleeping It's all right, sleep tight Through the long night with me With me No, I didn't start it You're broken hearted From a long, long time ago Oh, the way you hold me Is all that I need to know And it's so late, but I'll wait Through the long night with you With you Vertical Divider
This is not a simple "I love you" or "I want you" song. This is a more mature song. Billy has said that the song came about when helping someone close to him overcome emotional trauma, staying with that person through the suffering, giving a loved one emotional support, and watching that person sleep (the Glass Houses album is dedicated to Patrick Driscoll). It's an intensely personal song, but the beauty of the lyrics is that they are more universal and could be interpreted in many ways.
Musically, the song is reminiscent of The Beatles' "Yesterday," though Billy has said that he had "Yes It Is" (demo version) in mind. Like most of the songs on side two of Glass Houses, "Through The Long Night" did not get much recognition and is rarely played, but hardcore Billy Joel fans are fond of this sad and introspective ballad. In the video below, during a Q&A session, Billy explains the story behind "Through The Long Night." It's a very Irish song, he says, and he explains that the song came to him while he was watching someone who was undergoing emotional turmoil and had fallen asleep like in Pablo Picasso's series of paintings (left).
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Billy received the Grammy Award for "Best Rock Performance, Male" for Glass Houses in 1981, but in "Through The Long Night" Billy demonstrates that he can still create a very meaningful and tender ballad. It is one of his most underrated songs, and is little-known except to Billy's most ardent fans.
"And it's so late but I'll wait, through the long night with you. With you." |
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Videos
"Through The Long Night" with photos of Picasso paintings, from the same video as above, but jumps to 1:52 where the song begins. "Through The Long Night" is © 1980 Sony Music Entertainment.
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Demo version of "Through The Long Night."
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Acoustic instrumental version of "Through The Long Night" arranged and performed by Jim Bosse. Bosse is Billy's child hood friend and former bandmate. See the song "James."
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