Response to Jody Rosen's article on Billy Joel from slate.com

Fair enough, Jody, fair enough.

But I think defining his problem as hubris is harsh. Why not just say the guy tried a few things that didn't work, and a few that did? They're all still out there, and we can just skip "Pressure" and "We Didn't Start the Fire" for "Vienna" and "Italian Restaurant." To say that a guy's efforts to make a different type of song is evidence of his excessive pride is, to me, presumptuous.

Secondly, did you have to write this?

Reason I ask that is because, you know, look at Billy now. He's in and out of rehab, he crashes his motorcycle, he's famously sad, he's weeping in his corner. Part of this his surely his deal --- his lyrics are treacly and they expose him to lashings; he after all puts the alcohol in his own mouth; he's maybe too angry and might try too hard. But he's also been screwed over by record companies, and he's received probably numerous condemnations such as the one you delivered (indeed in this sense you are not saying a whole lot that is new). Could you maybe spare him? The quality of mercy, after all, is not strained.

All this reminds me of an article I read once by novelist Robert Stone comparing the work of Jack Kerouac and Herman Melville. Stone in the end appreciates Melville's work much more than Kerouac's. He then adds, "But let us, Kerouac's survivors, remember how much the work from which all this comes moved so many young people, and also remember how cruel, how brutal and heartless most of the mainstream media were to Jack Kerouac and his work during his lifetime. How in ridiculing his unarmored, vulnerable prose they broke his too tender heart and helped destroy him."

As uncool as it may make me, I'm asking you to be nice.