Billy Joel

Life gets even harder for people who do not

dream of making it a little better. Keep reaching
for your dreams; keep reaching for your goals
which you have
created with your heart and soul. And every time
you fail, hold on to it tight; never let it go. It may
get harder everyday but every step you put
forward is a great leap
towards triumph. After all, chances are, the life
you try to redefine is just right there
at the corner.
This unit focuses on Drama as a unique form of
literature and as a means for
you to understand unchanging values in a
changing world.

Task 1. The River of Dreams

Listen attentively to the lyrics of the song,
The River of Dreams. Be ready to answer
the following questions.

1.

What issues about life are

confronting the speaker in the song?
2. Among these issues, what do you
think he values the most? Why do
you say so?

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."