The album Billy Joel hated listening to: “It was so depressing” | CPT PPP Coverage

Once the band fell through, Joel would find himself in a bleak place as a songwriter. Going through a massive relationship breakdown, Joel would even consider suicide before being resuscitated by paramedics after two failed attempts. Though he was still writing music daily, his first experience working in a proper studio was less than admirable.

Working with producer Artie Ripp, Cold Spring Harbor would introduce the Billy Joel that most fans would recognise, complete with his knack for vivid human relationships on songs like ‘She’s Got a Way’. While it looked like everything was going well behind the scenes, things quickly turned south when Joel when working alongside Ripp. 

Talking about his experience working on the record, Joel would explain in his biography, “It was like pulling teeth. ‘This time can you do it with more feeling?’ I hated the strings. I didn’t want the sessions players. The whole thing was completely overproduced”. Outside of the massive expectations from the producer, Joel’s confidence as a singer was also shaken, never mastering his signature style until the follow-up Piano Man.

Even though the album was put together through pain, the final results still didn’t sit well with Joel. When mixing, the tapes would speed up, leading to decent songs sounding like they were comically sped up in post-production and making Joel sound like a strange cartoon character.

When playing the album back for friends, Joel remembered being beside himself with anger, explaining, “I was humiliated…I was so bent out of shape I just whipped the thing off the turntable, ran outside, and threw it down the street. After deciding just to go with it, that maybe [Artie] was right, that all our hard work would end up creating a great album, to have it be this horrible sounding thing – it was so depressing”.

Rather than spend time wallowing, Joel would go on the road to promote the album, honing his craft on the stage rather than in the studio. By the time he released Piano Man, he had finally understood how he should sound, creating soon-to-be iconic tracks like the title song and ‘Travelin’ Prayer’. Any songwriter might look at their compositions as their children, but Joel still considers Cold Spring Harbor as a botched job of what could have been a great album.