About the artist: Billy Joel (1949) is an American singer-songwriter, composer, and pianist, who was highly successful in the seventies and eighties. He has released thirteen studio albums and is one of the best-selling music artists of all time with over 150 million records sold worldwide. Billy Joel currently has one song in my list of about 200 best pop/rock songs of all time.
About the song: nothing in Billy Joel's impressive repertoire comes close to the anti-war song Goodnight Saigon, taken from the 1982 album The nylon curtain, a fascinating concept album about Baby Boomers in the Reagan era. Its striking lyrics reflect on the Vietnam war. "And who was wrong, and who was right? It didn't matter in the thick of the fight." Right. The video was as impressive, focusing on children playing with war toys. The song did not score highly in the USA (which could be due to the critical notes in an era when the Vietnam war was not fully digested), but was a considerable hit in The Netherlands. Run time 7:00.
