mostly david ephgrave

Billy Joel's ‘Lullaby (Goodnight My Angel)’ is one of the most heartrending songs I know. I have a theory about music that touches you: it has the power to stop time. There are a handful of songs I give my full attention to any time they come on and this is one of them; it’s searingly honest without a trace of artifice and that’s what’s so special about it; Joel’s love for his daughter as he tries to answer her question, “What happens when we die?” whilst in the midst of divorce from her mother glistens from every note with no word or sound out of place; it's perfect. The song came up in an unlikely situation only last month: while I was chatting to Bobby Davro before we shared the bill at Mostly Comedy. He was telling me how he’d recently learnt the harmonica part to 'Piano Man'; painstakingly going over it repeatedly until he mastered it, much to the frustration of his daughter (it’s not the nicest instrument to listen to when y...

Today, I purposely stayed in a pub after finishing my drink because a certain song came on the radio. That song was Vienna by Billy Joel; a song I hadn’t heard before until relatively recently, when I went to see him live with my wife and my mother-in-law at Wembley Stadium last year. It’s something that really resonates with me, as someone who can be prone to overdo it, or be too focused on achieving certain goals as being proof of my validity. I actually think I’ve got better at this lately and my work / life balance has improved. When I was a teenager, my band was my sole focus and the most important thing in my life, and succeeding - whatever that meant - was essential; if we didn’t get signed and achieve popularity, I'd have failed. As it was, we were on route to this when my life went another way and acting and comedy became my main motivation, but I always had the sense that I wasn’t doing enough; that every second not spent on work was ...

My favourite bit of tonight's Billy Joel gig was when Billy Joel came on and sang some Billy Joel songs. The show was at Wembley Stadium (it's the first time I'd been inside, having only been to concerts in the Arena, and never having seen a football match there), and was truly great. I've had a soft spot for Joel's work for a long time - he wrote one of my favourite songs, no less, but we'll get to that - but probably wouldn't have thought to see him, if it weren't for the fact my mother-in-law's a fan, and my wife offered to take her to the gig, thus giving me an alibi. He's an exceptionally good showman, with a voice that's still very much in tact, which was inspiring to hear. He's one of a tight group of "songwriters' songwriters" , such as McCartney and (early) Elton John, with a deep musicality and a varied ouvre, from pop (that's on the right side of jazzy without being conceited) to rock and folk and a little b...