In the middle of the night billy joel disney movie

Songfacts®:

• Billy Joel gets a lot of song ideas in his dreams, and often struggles to remember them when he wakes up. For this song, however, he woke up with the song in his head, but tried NOT to write it. He explained on The Howard Stern Show in 2010: "I thought, Who the hell am I to try to pull off this gospel song, so I took a shower to wash this song away. I sang it in the shower and knew I had to do it."

  In Joel's dream, he was "walking in his sleep," which inspired that lyric.

• Joel has said that the phrase "River of Dreams" is a play on the phrase "Stream of Consciousness."

• This is a very spiritual song where Joel, who identifies himself as an atheist, includes some biblical imagery, including the line, "Through the valley of fear," which is a reference to Psalm 23:4 - "Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil." Joel also says that the river is a religious image, as "there's baptizing in a river and you have to cross the river - people are getting dunked in the river and there's rivers of blood."

• The cover of the River Of Dreams album was painted by supermodel Christie Brinkley, who was Joel's second wife. >>

  Suggestion credit:
  Tony - Waukesha, WI

• Danny Kortchmar co-produced this song with Joe Nicolo, who was also the engineer. In the '70s, Kortchmar toured and recorded with James Taylor, and also played on popular albums by Jackson Browne, David Crosby/Graham Nash, Linda Ronstadt and many others. Some of his other production credits include the albums Blaze of Glory by Jon Bon Jovi and End Of The Innocence by Don Henley. In our interview with Kortchmar, he talked about his production philosophy, which suited the introspective nature of this track:

  "Get the most out of the artists you're working for. And get something that's true to them and that represents them and is also catchy and is going to attract people - attract ears. So it's really just a matter of being true to the artist's original vision of himself, because I'm not one of these people that wants to be a svengali and wants to change somebody into something else."

• Joel performed this song at the Grammy Awards ceremony in 1994, where it was up for Record of the Year (it lost to Whitney Houston's "I Will Always Love You"). Joel, backed by a large gospel choir on a set designed to look like a church, used the false ending about two-and-a-half minutes into the song as an opportunity to make a point: instead of waiting a beat and continuing the song, he stopped cold, looked at his watch and said, "Valuable advertising time going by... dollars." Joel later said that he was protesting because producers cut off Frank Sinatra's acceptance speech earlier in the telecast when Sinatra was given a Legend Award.

• The video was directed by Andy Morahan, who also did Joel's clip for "The Downeaster Alexa." It was shot in Connecticut; the bridge scenes were done at the Providence & Worcester railroad bridge in Middletown, which crosses the Connecticut River. Joel's daughter, Alexa Ray, and wife, Christie Brinkley, appear in the video along the riverbank with Brinkley painting the album cover.

William Martin "Billy" Joel is an American pianist, singer-songwriter, and composer. Commonly nicknamed the "Piano Man", he has been making music since the 1960s. For Disney, he made his acting debut as the voice of Dodger in the 1988 Disney animated feature film, Oliver & Company, where he also contributed to and recorded the song "Why Should I Worry". He also sang "When You Wish Upon a Star" in Simply Mad About the Mouse.

Born in The Bronx section of New York City, Joel grew up on Long Island, where both places influenced his music with his mother insisting he take piano lessons. Joel attended Hicksville High School until 1967, but did not graduate with his class and began playing at bars to support himself. In 1971, he signed a record deal with Family Productions and kicking off a solo career in 1971 with his first album Cold Spring Harbor However, his second album Piano Man that he had his first with the title song, becoming his most recognized hit. Over the next two decades, Joel continued to release more hit songs like "Just the Way You Are", "Movin' Out (Anthony's Song)", "Only the Good Die Young", "My Life", "She's Always a Woman", "Scenes from an Italian Restaurant", "It's Still Rock and Roll to Me", "You May Be Right", "Don't Ask Me Why", "Tell Her About It", "Uptown Girl", "The Longest Time", "We Didn't Start the Fire", "This is the Time", and "The River of Dreams".

Despite retiring from writing and releasing new music following the release of River of Dreams, he continues to tour; he frequently performs at Madison Square Garden. His career earned him several Grammy wins, honorary doctorates, and inductions into various Halls of fam such as the Songwriters Hall of Fame (1992) and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame (1999).

Disney Role

Gallery

Billy Joel behind the scenes of Oliver & Company.

Billy Joel visits The Tonight Show starring Jimmy Fallon in March 2014.

Billy Joel speaks onstage at the 72nd annual Tony Awards in June 2018.

Trivia

• Critics were generally positive toward Oliver & Company and pointed to Joel's acting contribution as one of its highlights, despite it being his first acting job (the only other acting Joel has done is guest-starring as himself in multiple TV sitcoms, such as Mad About You and Kevin Can Wait). In interviews, Joel explained that he took the role of Dodger, due to his love of Disney cartoons as a child.

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