Old music: Billy Joel – Souvenir

The New Yorker's seasonal hymn reflects on how trinkets can transport us to times pastSome songs call you back year after year, to pause and ponder. For me it's Billy Joel's Souvenir, the penultimate track from 1974's Streetlife Serenade, which carries a punch in its pilgrimage to the past. He opens channelling Chopin, but the former amateur boxer then lands his lyrical jabs: "A picture postcard, a folded stub, a programme of the play." Merely a paper trail of course, but paper, like songs, can ...

Read full article Share article