And So It Goes — Billy Joel

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wcUCYtyaLrY

This is a song I first heard performed by The Duke's Men of Yale, a collegiate a cappella group. They did it slow and somber, and I thought it was a slowed-down treatment of an 80s pop song; I looked it up with the key lyric 'this heart to break'; and found it was truly a slow and gorgeous Billy Joel song. A Billy Joel song without the strappings of a Billy Joel song; no arpeggio piano exercises, no dramatic strings, no New-York-in-the-80s vibe; it's about love and loss, and it's sweet and sad and slow and hopeful, and it's perfection. For an artist like Billy Joel to take a break from his intensities for a ballad without pretenses, this is a remarkable song.