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.