I didn’t believe it when Billy Joel sang it, and I don’t believe it when Donald Trump says it. Joel intended it as a tribute to the Drifters, and it became the title song his 1983 LP, a set of tunes inspired by the music of his youth. As the album’s third single it reached No. 10 on the Hot 100.
You can hear Joel straining to hit those high notes in that pre-autotune era. “I had a suspicion that was going to be the last time I was going to be able to hit those notes, so why not go out in a blaze of glory?” he told Billboard in 1997. “That was the end of Billy’s high note.”
