“People always ask what my favourite Billy Joel song is. To me, you might as well be asking me to choose one of my children. But here’s a secret between you, me, and the Internet – this is the one. Simple, melancholic yet genuinely hopeful – pretty much like every Billy song. I knew that I didn’t want to just copy and paste Billy’s version, and Mark really brought this into the modern era without losing the essence of it – rolling piano, steady bass and sincere lyrics. On a deeper level, it visits with the duality of manic depression (now bipolar) and the reality that life is never simple, and that’s the joy.”
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
Though we choose between reality and madness
It’s either sadness or euphoria
How thoughtlessly we dissipate our energies
Perhaps we’ll help 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
© 1976 Billy Joel © Universal Music Publishing Group