A host of unreleased tracks and rarities will be found on the upcoming Billy Joel boxed set “My Lives,” due Dec. 6 via Columbia/Legacy. Joel personally selected the material for the five-disc collection, which features 23 never-before-heard songs as well as a previously unreleased live DVD shot in Frankfurt during the River of Dreams tour.
The set begins with rare cuts from Joel’s mid-1960s bands the Lost Souls and the Hassles and moves into material recorded by his hard rock act Attila, which released its only album in 1970. Disc one also features demos of “Only a Man,” “Oyster Bay” and “Piano Man,” plus early versions of “New Mexico” (which became “Worse Comes to Worst”) and “These Rhinestone Days” (which became “I Loved These Days”).
The second disc sports early versions of “For the Longest Time” and “Elvis Presley Blvd.,” a live take on “Captain Jack” from a July 1981 show at Sparks Saloon in Huntington, Long Island, an alternate version of “Getting Closer” with Steve Winwood and a live cover of Bob Dylan’s “The Times They Are a Changin'” recorded in 1987 on a Russian TV show.
Disc three is dominated by live and studio covers of such tracks as the Isley Brothers’ “Shout,” Elvis Presley’s “All Shook Up” and “Heartbreak Hotel,” the Beatles’ “A Hard Day’s Night,” Leonard Cohen’s “Light as the Breeze” and the Carole King/Gerry Goffin oldie “Hey Girl.”
The final audio disc features a 1994 live duet with Elton John on “You May Be Right,” audio clips of recordings first issued on Joel’s “Essential Video Collection” and a series of his recent classical compositions.
The live DVD rounds up 14 selections from throughout Joel’s career, including “Pressure,” “Allentown,” “We Didn’t Start the Fire,” “Big Shot” and “Goodnight Saigon.”
Fans can also utilize Umixit technology encoded onto the disc to make their own remixes of Joel’s “Zanzibar” and a live version of “I Go to Extremes.”
Here is the track list for “My Lives”:
Disc 1:
“My Journey’s End” (the Lost Souls)
“Time and Time Again” (the Lost Souls)
“Every Step I Take (Every Move I Make)” (the Hassles)
“You’ve Got Me Hummin'” (the Hassles)
“Amplifier Fire” (Attila)
“Only a Man” (demo, previously unreleased)
“She’s Got a Way”
“Oyster Bay” (demo, previously unreleased)
“Piano Man” (demo, previously unreleased)
“The Siegfried Line” (demo, previously unreleased)
“New Mexico” (demo, previously unreleased, later became “Worse Comes To Worst”)
“Cross To Bear” (demo, previously unreleased)
“Miami 2017” (demo, previously unreleased)
“These Rhinestone Days” (demo, previously unreleased, later became “I Loved These Days”)
“Everybody Has a Dream”
“Only the Good Die Young” (alternate, previously unreleased)
“Until the Night”
“Zanzibar”
“It’s Still Rock and Roll to Me”
Disc 2:
“Captain Jack” (live, 1981)
“The End of the World” (demo, previously unreleased, later became “Elvis Presley Blvd.”)
“The Prime of Your Life” (demo, previously unreleased, later became “For The Longest Time”)
“She’s Right on Time”
“Elvis Presley Blvd.”
“Nobody Knows But Me”
“An Innocent Man”
“Christie Lee” (demo, previously unreleased)
“Easy Money”
“And So It Goes” (demo, previously unreleased)
“I’ll Cry Instead” (live, 1983)
“Keeping the Faith” (12″ dance remix)
“Modern Woman”
“Baby Grand” with Ray Charles
“Getting Closer” with Steve Winwood (previously unreleased)
“House of Blue Light”
“Money or Love” (demo, previously unreleased)
“The Times They Are a’ Changin'” (live, 1987)
Disc 3:
“The Downeaster ‘Alexa'”
“I Go to Extremes”
“Shout”
“All Shook Up”
“Heartbreak Hotel”
“When You Wish Upon a Star”
“In a Sentimental Mood”
“Motorcycle Song” (demo, previously unreleased, later became “All About Soul”)
“You Picked a Real Bad Time”
“The River of Dreams” (alternate, previously unreleased)
“Hard Days Night”
“Light as the Breeze”
“To Make You Feel My Love”
“Hey Girl”
“Why Should I Worry”
“Where Were You on Our Wedding Day”
“Highway 61 Revisited” (demo, previously unreleased)
Disc 4:
“Movin’ Out”
“You May Be Right” with Elton John (live, previously unreleased)
“Big Shot”
“Don’t Worry Baby”
“Goodnight Saigon” (Vietnam Veterans version)
“Los Angelenos”
“New York State of Mind”
“Opus 1. Soliloquy (On a Separation)”
“Opus 8. Suite for Piano (Star Crossed)”
“Elegy: The Great Peconic”
DVD:
“No Man’s Land”
“Pressure”
“Ballad of Billy the Kid”
“Leningrad”
“Allentown”
“My Life”
“I Go to Extremes”
“Shades of Grey”
“The River of Dreams”
“Goodnight Saigon”
“We Didn’t Start the Fire”
“Hard Days Night”
“Big Shot”
“Piano Man”
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