Elton John & Billy Joel's Rocking Rivers of Gospel

In the 1990s, there were two similar songs dealing with rivers in the gospel rock style. One song was from America and the other was from England. They were by popular piano playing singers Billy Joel & Elton John. They both came out in significant periods of their careers as in Billy’s case “The River Of Dreams” was the title track of his last studio album of popular music and in Elton’s case his song “If The River Can Bend” came out shortly after his releasing the most popular worldwide single “Candle In The Wind 1997” for Princess Diana. That single was paired as a double A-side with “Something About The Way You Look Tonight”. If The River Can Bend comes from the album “The Big Picture” that features “Something About The Way You Look Tonight”. I recently featured Billy’s song in my article “Ten Great Non-Relationship Rock Songs by Ten Different Singers”. I’m embedding the official YouTube audio of the songs below and will discuss and compare them. 

Billy Joel - The River Of Dreams (1993)

Elton John - If The River Can Bend (1997)

The River Of Dreams opens with percussion, but soon a common opening forms with “If The River Can Bend” once the keyboards come in. Both songs’ opening features them singing sounds alongside keyboards and percussion with Billy going “ooohhoo ahahhhaa ...” and Elton going “oh oh …”. They both bring in their piano following this. Just after the middle section of each song, there is a rocking piano solo. Both feature a gospel choir. The protagonists of both songs have things they don’t know, such as where their destination is going.

I’ll now go into some of the differences. The River Of Dreams was a hit song, whereas “If The River Can Bend”, released as a single, was not a hit song. It did reach a modest Number 32 in Elton’s native UK. Elton’s song seems to relate to a relationship or friendship unlike Billy’s song. Billy sings about “searching for something” and Elton sings about finding someone waiting “if the river can bend”. The River Of Dreams obviously deals with dreams unlike “If The River Can Bend”. If The River Can Bend has an orchestra. While the guitar parts are similar on both songs, they are more prominent in Elton’s song, especially towards the end. A well-known difference is the songwriting of each singer as Billy writes both the music and lyrics while Elton writes the music with lyrics by a lyricist who for this song is his songwriting partner Bernie Taupin. 

As I Christian, I find the gospel music and themes in these songs interesting. Unlike Elton John, Billy Joel makes some clear Christian references in his song. As Bob Seger is one of the topics I write about on this blog, I like the fact that Billy sometimes plays part of Bob Seger’s “Old Time Rock & Roll” in the middle of “The River Of Dreams” in his concerts. Infact, my previous blog post was about “Old Time Rock & Roll”. I was pleased to find out that Elton & Billy sang “Old Time Rock & Roll” together in their show on the 13th of October 2002 in Uniondale, New York. Similarly, it’s interesting to note that for Elton John & Billy Joel’s 1998 European tour, each singer performed their river song in their solo setlist. It was unfortunately only a few shows with Billy Joel in Europe due to Billy’s illness.

This is a similarity between Elton John and Billy Joel which I don’t believe has been mentioned before. Feel free to give your thoughts on these songs. I’d be interested in hearing people’s thoughts on the song meanings of these two river songs. I hope to write about other similar songs in the future.

Bob Seger's Old Time Rock & Roll Live

In 2004, American rock singer Bob Seger was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. One of the two songs he performed with the Silver Bullet Band at his induction ceremony was his iconic hit “Old Time Rock & Roll”. The song comes from his 1978 album “Stranger in Town” and I wrote an article about the making of it for its 40th anniversary three years ago. I recently discovered an official video of him performing that song that was uploaded by the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame last year to YouTube on Bob Seger 75th birthday. I’m pleased that they uploaded this video as I had been wanting to see this performance for years. In this post, I’m embedding the video below with my thoughts on it afterward.

This version has similarities to the live version on his 1981 live album “Nine Tonight” which includes the rockier guitar solos by Drew Abbott, Alto Reed’s saxophone solos and Craig Frost’s piano. I’m pleased that this version has the original piano intro which is played by Craig Frost unlike the “Nine Tonight” version that uses a long guitar intro. A new component in this version is the more intense guitars which probably comes from Mark Chatfield who plays guitar alongside original Silver Bullet Band guitarist Drew Abbott. I’m glad that Drew reunited with the Silver Bullet Band for Bob Seger’s Rock & Roll Hall of Fame induction. 

You can see Bob’s enthusiasm and happiness in his performance. It’s evident when he calls and points to Drew Abbott before Drew’s first solo. This solo is Drew’s own creation taking inspiration from the song’s original solo by Forrest McDonald. About a minute later Alto performs his solo which is a more soulful variant of his original solo that’s been heard numerous times the world over. It’s special to see Alto as he sadly passed away in December 2020. 

I like how this version is longer than the original as there is an extended section near the end of the song. This section includes another guitar solo by Drew that takes elements from the guitar notes towards the end of the studio version. Alto also plays his saxophone solo a second time. It’s great to see Craig play prominent rock & roll piano notes in the middle of Alto’s solo. Old Time Rock & Roll is a globally popular classic rock song which is a celebration of the power of music, specifically rock & roll music. While Bob is singing about 50s rock & roll, to me this song is a celebration of his and other great rock & roll from his generation.

Cerno's Colombo

There is a popular Sri Lankan blogger who blogs under his online name Cerno. Five years ago, he made his Flickr photos in the public domain. I found great photos of Colombo, Sri Lanka in his Flickr so I decided to write a blog post using some of his Colombo photos with commentary by me.

We’ll begin with two photos of Independence Square. I like the angle he took in the second photo

which is capturing the Independence Memorial Hall in a great way. 

This is a nice shot of Colombo at night featuring interesting light effects.

This is what Cerno calls an “Unglamorous Colombo panorama”. He had taken this photo from Durdans Hospital in 2007. While this isn’t the poshest aspect of Colombo, I wouldn’t call it unglamorous. I think it’s a nice depiction of the Colombo suburbs. The abundance of buildings in Colombo are often criticised, but for me that’s part of Colombo’s charm. This picture has a lot of trees alongside buildings which I think is an aspect of the Colombo look and feel.

Here’s an old photo of Colombo probably taken in the mid or late 1980s. Sri Lanka’s Supreme Court complex can be seen in the picture. Colombo looks so different to how it is now.

Here’s a photo of Colombo taken much more recently in December 2012. This provides a strong

contrast to the previous picture taken in the 1980s. While both photos were taken from different places,

they both point towards Colombo Fort with the Bank of Ceylon building being the most common link

between the two. I personally prefer contemporary Colombo. This is the first in a set of photos Cerno

seems to have taken from a building.

Here’s a panorama taken from the same position, thus we get a much wider view including a better

look at the sea. Just like in the previous photo, we see alongside buildings many trees and the Beira

Lake.

There are quite a few colourful buildings in this photo. 

I’ll end this with a lovely shot of contemporary Colombo featuring modern buildings. We also see some

green with the trees, the Beira Lake and a bit of grass. One thing I’ve noticed in these four photos is

that there is hardly any traffic on the Colombo roads which seems strange to me as this is daytime

when the traffic is very intense. The peaceful Colombo roads are good to see.

These photos showcase attributes of Colombo which includes its history, modernity, uniqueness and

colour. If you enjoyed this, you may be interested in my previous blog post “Captivating Colombo”

featuring photos I took of Colombo. I also started off that post with Independence Square.