August 20, 2025
FILM: BILLY JOEL: AND SO IT GOES
DIRECTED BY: SUSAN LACY, JESSICA LEVIN
RATING: 4 out of 4 stars
By Dan Pal
Each year there seems to be an increasing number of excellent new documentaries being released about significant pop/rock artists. In the last two weeks alone I’ve covered films about Jeff Buckley and T. Rex. After one of those reviews, I had a discussion with a reader on Substack about who deserves a lengthy documentary treatment. Sure, there is probably more to be said about Buckley and T. Rex’s Marc Bolan but how long is too long when covering an artist’s life and career? Barbra Streisand’s recording of the audio book for her recent memoir runs approximately 48 hours! (Not surprisingly, I know some people who gave up…) Cher released the first half of her autobiography last year with another to be published in 2026. Currently streaming is the five-hour HBO Max documentary, Billy Joel: And So It Goes. It’s really more of a mini-series divided into two parts. Is it too much? Too little? My answer is a resounding no to both questions.
The thing about artists like Joel, Streisand, and Cher is that they’ve had really long successful careers. They’ve continued performing and releasing product over a half century after they first began. So, there’s a lot to cover. Of course, one could produce a one hour Behind the Music-style film (remember those in the 90s?) about any of these artists but who would it be for? Casual fans? There are people who will eat up any and all material by artists like this (and Paul McCartney, Elton John, the Rolling Stones, etc. etc.) So why not give them what they want? All the history, peaks, valleys, farewells, and returns are welcome by fans of these superstars.
Five hours of Billy Joel definitely satisfies. Yes, it would be much too long for those who have derided his music but I’m not one of those people. I remember hearing his song The Entertainer play on Casey Kasem’s American Top 40 in the mid-1970s. It was strange and didn’t sound like anything else at the time. Then, of course, came The Stranger in 1977 which knocked everyone’s socks off, including mine. That 1-2-3 punch of The Stranger, 52nd Street, and Glass Houses accompanied me throughout my high school years. They were each hugely successful albums and the hits kept coming even after that. So, Joel’s music has been a big part of my life. I first saw him in concert in 1980 and again with Elton John and then solo in the late 2000s. Last year he returned to Chicago to play Soldier Field with Stevie Nicks. I was there, and so were thousands of other die-hard fans. So, yes I understand why a five-hour mini-series on Joel was necessary.
The length offers details I never heard or saw before. The film explores his early career before he was a solo artist, his affair with his musical partner’s wife who became Joel’s manager, his absent father (and the inspiration for his song Vienna), motorcycle and car accidents, additional marriages, his drinking, and his late career resurgence with a residency at Madison Square Garden. How could one leave any of that out? Plus, there are live performances of the majority of his hits and a few of his big music videos to boot. Along the way several of his contemporaries are interviewed, including Bruce Springsteen, Sting, Jackson Browne, and Don Henley. Even each of his three ex-wives are given substantial time to talk about him. Joel’s personal life is explored with great detail, including the time his brother-in-law, who became his manager after Joel and his first wife divorced, “stole” millions of dollars from him.
It’s also very interesting to hear about the ups and downs of his career and how they affected him emotionally. Even though Joel won several Grammy Awards, people say he wasn’t critically well-respected. I disagree with this. Say what you will about the Grammys but they do tend to honor significant artists at some point in their careers. Joel got all of his love from the organization when he made those three major albums I mentioned earlier.
With an artist of this caliber it is also great to see the creative process that went into so much of his popular work. We learn about why Joel stepped away from making the pop records that were so successful from the 1970s until the early 1990s. There’s a nice exploration of his dive into classical composing and then his aforementioned return to the spotlight during the 21st Century.
So, there’s not much missing from the film series. It serves as a great visual document of a hugely popular entertainer and the work he created. I watched it over three sittings and was glad I did. It lingered and allowed me to be enveloped by the life of one of my pop heroes.
Billy Joel: And So It Goes is currently streaming on HBO Max.
FILM: BILLY JOEL: AND SO IT GOES
DIRECTED BY: SUSAN LACY, JESSICA LEVIN
RATING: 4 out of 4 stars
By Dan Pal
Each year there seems to be an increasing number of excellent new documentaries being released about significant pop/rock artists. In the last two weeks alone I’ve covered films about Jeff Buckley and T. Rex. After one of those reviews, I had a discussion with a reader on Substack about who deserves a lengthy documentary treatment. Sure, there is probably more to be said about Buckley and T. Rex’s Marc Bolan but how long is too long when covering an artist’s life and career? Barbra Streisand’s recording of the audio book for her recent memoir runs approximately 48 hours! (Not surprisingly, I know some people who gave up…) Cher released the first half of her autobiography last year with another to be published in 2026. Currently streaming is the five-hour HBO Max documentary, Billy Joel: And So It Goes. It’s really more of a mini-series divided into two parts. Is it too much? Too little? My answer is a resounding no to both questions.
The thing about artists like Joel, Streisand, and Cher is that they’ve had really long successful careers. They’ve continued performing and releasing product over a half century after they first began. So, there’s a lot to cover. Of course, one could produce a one hour Behind the Music-style film (remember those in the 90s?) about any of these artists but who would it be for? Casual fans? There are people who will eat up any and all material by artists like this (and Paul McCartney, Elton John, the Rolling Stones, etc. etc.) So why not give them what they want? All the history, peaks, valleys, farewells, and returns are welcome by fans of these superstars.
Five hours of Billy Joel definitely satisfies. Yes, it would be much too long for those who have derided his music but I’m not one of those people. I remember hearing his song The Entertainer play on Casey Kasem’s American Top 40 in the mid-1970s. It was strange and didn’t sound like anything else at the time. Then, of course, came The Stranger in 1977 which knocked everyone’s socks off, including mine. That 1-2-3 punch of The Stranger, 52nd Street, and Glass Houses accompanied me throughout my high school years. They were each hugely successful albums and the hits kept coming even after that. So, Joel’s music has been a big part of my life. I first saw him in concert in 1980 and again with Elton John and then solo in the late 2000s. Last year he returned to Chicago to play Soldier Field with Stevie Nicks. I was there, and so were thousands of other die-hard fans. So, yes I understand why a five-hour mini-series on Joel was necessary.
The length offers details I never heard or saw before. The film explores his early career before he was a solo artist, his affair with his musical partner’s wife who became Joel’s manager, his absent father (and the inspiration for his song Vienna), motorcycle and car accidents, additional marriages, his drinking, and his late career resurgence with a residency at Madison Square Garden. How could one leave any of that out? Plus, there are live performances of the majority of his hits and a few of his big music videos to boot. Along the way several of his contemporaries are interviewed, including Bruce Springsteen, Sting, Jackson Browne, and Don Henley. Even each of his three ex-wives are given substantial time to talk about him. Joel’s personal life is explored with great detail, including the time his brother-in-law, who became his manager after Joel and his first wife divorced, “stole” millions of dollars from him.
It’s also very interesting to hear about the ups and downs of his career and how they affected him emotionally. Even though Joel won several Grammy Awards, people say he wasn’t critically well-respected. I disagree with this. Say what you will about the Grammys but they do tend to honor significant artists at some point in their careers. Joel got all of his love from the organization when he made those three major albums I mentioned earlier.
With an artist of this caliber it is also great to see the creative process that went into so much of his popular work. We learn about why Joel stepped away from making the pop records that were so successful from the 1970s until the early 1990s. There’s a nice exploration of his dive into classical composing and then his aforementioned return to the spotlight during the 21st Century.
So, there’s not much missing from the film series. It serves as a great visual document of a hugely popular entertainer and the work he created. I watched it over three sittings and was glad I did. It lingered and allowed me to be enveloped by the life of one of my pop heroes.
Billy Joel: And So It Goes is currently streaming on HBO Max.