Billy Joel is a pop/rock music legend! For 50+ years his impeccable songwriting, ivory-tickling, unique vocals, and everyman persona have created a catalog of epic proportions. And So It Goes is a documentary that captures all of that and gets Joel's perspective on it all.
For what is essentially a chronological biography, there's no way And So It Goes should be as good as it is. Not at a whopping 5-hour runtime (two 2.5 hour episodes). But directors Susan Lacy & Jessica Levin use every ounce of that extended runway to examine different angles of Joel's life and music.
This is of course a doc that somewhat trades in the tried and true "trade lengthy artist participation for steering clear of controversial topics" formula that HBO Docs seems to prefer. Yet, it is never a big problem here because Joel is generally so forthright about his own personal demons or foibles.
The two things about And So It Goes that stuck out to me the most:
-I hadn't realized how special of a songwriter Joel was. At every life stage, he crafted tunes from his own experiences that are generalizable enough to be enjoyed by mass audiences--and stand the test of time. A true gift.
-The way Joel's personal relationships (wives, children, father, managers, etc.) impacted his artistic journey. While a lot more straightforward and less uptight about his own life than many musicians seem to be, he also is able to talk about the ups and downs of his life and come to some kind of terms with them.
As someone who came of music-listening age after the majority of Billy Joel's catalog was already established, And So It Goes was exactly the doc I needed to help understand the method behind Joel's remarkable song-crafting madness.
