{"id":3970,"date":"2025-07-25T13:30:00","date_gmt":"2025-07-25T13:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/deep-cut-friday-you-can-make-me-free-by-billy-joel\/"},"modified":"2025-07-25T13:30:00","modified_gmt":"2025-07-25T13:30:00","slug":"deep-cut-friday-you-can-make-me-free-by-billy-joel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/deep-cut-friday-you-can-make-me-free-by-billy-joel\/","title":{"rendered":"Deep Cut Friday: \u201cYou Can Make Me Free\u201d by Billy Joel"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<figure><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/static.spin.com\/files\/2025\/07\/GettyImages-494016584.jpg\" width=\"\" height=\"\" alt=\"Billy Joel in 1976. (Credit: Gijsbert Hanekroot\/Redferns)\"><\/figure>\n<p><em>Each week, SPIN digs into the catalog of great artists and highlights songs you might not know for our Deep Cut Friday series.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>The second half of the two-part documentary <em>Billy Joel: And So It Goes<\/em> is out on HBO Max today, July 25. And while Joel was one of the biggest singles artists of the 1970s and \u201980s, many of his album tracks have bubbled up into popular consciousness over the years. \u201cCaptain Jack,\u201d \u201cScenes From an Italian Restaurant,\u201d and \u201cNew York State of Mind\u201d are perennial radio favorites, \u201cZanzibar\u201d and \u201cMiami 2017\u201d have been staples of Joel\u2019s record-breaking Madison Square Garden residencies, and \u201cVienna\u201d has slowly climbed to become his top streaming track.<\/p>\n<p>More from Spin:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>\n\t\t\t<a href=\"https:\/\/www.spin.com\/2025\/07\/indigo-de-souza-finds-herself-on-the-precipice\/\">Indigo De Souza Finds Herself on the \u2018Precipice\u2019<\/a>\n\t\t<\/li>\n<li>\n\t\t\t<a href=\"https:\/\/www.spin.com\/2025\/07\/5-albums-i-cant-live-without-durand-jones-the-indications\/\">5 Albums I Can\u2019t Live Without: Durand Jones &amp; The Indications<\/a>\n\t\t<\/li>\n<li>\n\t\t\t<a href=\"https:\/\/www.spin.com\/2025\/07\/tame-impala-new-single\/\">Tame Impala Keep Dancing On Lead Single From New LP<\/a>\n\t\t<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>One album that isn\u2019t revisited often by Joel or his fans is his solo debut, 1971\u2019s <em>Cold Spring Harbor<\/em>, and it\u2019s not hard to understand why. Artie Ripp signed the 22-year-old piano man to his Family Productions label for a 10-album deal and produced <em>Cold Spring Harbor<\/em>, but failed to catch a mastering error that led to the album being released at the wrong speed, the songs playing slightly too fast with Joel\u2019s voice pitched higher. Despite the technical issues, the album amply displays the young Joel\u2019s early songwriting chops, particularly on the McCartney-esque \u201cYou Can Make Me Free,\u201d which stretches out to nearly six minutes with a hard rocking coda. Joel and Ripp\u2019s relationship never recovered from the mastering disaster, and when Joel jumped ship to Columbia Records, Ripp cut a deal to continue to profit from Joel\u2019s next nine albums, which bore the Family Productions logo.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<lite-youtube videoid=\"Rk4TS2GwaN8\" style=\"bottom: 0; height: 100%; left: 0; position: absolute; right: 0; top: 0; width: 100%; max-width:100%;\"><\/lite-youtube>\n<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<p>Ripp\u2019s 1983 remix of <em>Cold Spring Harbor<\/em> fixed the speed issue, but it took other liberties with the recording, including fading out \u201cYou Can Make Me Free\u201d early and deleting the three minutes of wild jamming that originally closed the song. Unfortunately, that\u2019s the only version of the song on streaming services today, although you can still hear the original 1971 version on YouTube. <em>Cold Spring Harbor<\/em> remains the only Joel album that hasn\u2019t gone platinum. \u201cShe\u2019s Got a Way\u201d and \u201cEverybody Loves You Now\u201d reached a wider audience on Joel\u2019s 1981 live album <em>Songs in the Attic<\/em>, but \u201cYou Can Make Me Free\u201d remains one of a couple <em>Cold Spring Harbor<\/em> songs that Joel hasn\u2019t performed in over 50 years.<\/p>\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"h-three-more-essential-billy-joel-deep-cuts\"><strong>Three more essential Billy Joel deep cuts:<\/strong><\/h2>\n<\/p>\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"h-stiletto\"><strong>\u201cStiletto\u201d<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>The taut groove and staccato piano tiff on \u201cStiletto\u201d from 1978\u2019s <em>52nd Street<\/em> have caught the ear of many hip-hop producers, and the song\u2019s been sampled on great tracks by Kool G Rap &amp; DJ Polo, De La Soul, and Nas.<\/p>\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"h-sleeping-with-the-television-on\"><strong>\u201cSleeping with the Television On\u201d<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>Joel sneered at trendy music industry marketing terms like \u201cnew wave\u201d on the biggest hit from 1980\u2019s <em>Glass Houses<\/em>, \u201cIt\u2019s Still Rock and Roll to Me.\u201d But \u201cSleeping With the Television On\u201d from the same album is about as new wave as he ever got, and it\u2019s fantastic. Phish\u2019s Trey Anastasio joined Joel onstage at Madison Square Garden last year for three songs, including \u201cSleeping.\u201d<\/p>\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"h-she-s-right-on-time\"><strong>\u201cShe\u2019s Right on Time\u201d<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>In 2017, Joel appeared on \u201cThe Late Show with Stephen Colbert,\u201d and the host asked the singer to name his top five songs from his own catalog. Joel\u2019s list included some popular tracks like \u201cYou May Be Right\u201d and \u201cScenes From an Italian Restaurant,\u201d along with \u201cShe\u2019s Right on Time,\u201d an overlooked gem from 1982\u2019s <em>The Nylon Curtain<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>To see our running list of the top 100 greatest rock stars of all time, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.spin.com\/2021\/07\/the-greatest-rock-stars-of-all-time\/?utm_source=yahoo&amp;utm_medium=bottomlink&amp;utm_campaign=yahoolink\">click here<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div style=\"margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px;\" class=\"sharethis-inline-share-buttons\" ><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Each week, SPIN digs into the catalog of great artists and highlights songs you might not know for our Deep Cut Friday series. The second half of the two-part documentary&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[837,2152,31,24],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3970","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-billy-joel","category-deep-cut-friday","category-features","category-pushly"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3970","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3970"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3970\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3970"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3970"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3970"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}