While away I read in a 2-week old People magazine that was left in our cabin by some previous visitors that a 30-year anniversary edition of Billy Joel‘s The Stranger was recently issued, probably with bonus tracks and other stuff that would make revisiting the original album even more painful. Talk about soundtracks to my high school years! That album covered another annoying undercurrent, and I was reminded of The Stranger‘s prevalence at social functions like school dances, weddings, and – I suspect – Bar Mitzvahs. My prime Bar Mitzvah-attending years (as a peer, that is, not a friend of the parents) predated Joel’s breakthrough album, but I feel safe in suggesting that Billy Joel is the king of Bar Mitzvah Rock. I could be wrong – who’s more deserving of Bar Mitzvah Rock Royalty? What artists or songs make you relive Bar Mitzvahs from your past? (For those of you who’ve not had the honor to attend a Bar or Bat Mitzvah, feel free to substitute another coming of age religious event.)
Are we in agreement that Billy is King, or was posting this thread on the Sabbath a bad idea?
I can’t speak on Bar Mitzvahs, but James “J.T.” Taylor might as well be part of my family for as many times as Celebration got played at awful christenings and communion parties and the like.