Song of the Week: “And So It Goes” by Billy Joel

Fortunately for his fans, Billy Joel has popped up on television quite a few times in the past weeks. Unfortunately, these performances were in response to tragedy. Joel was throwing his weight behind charity efforts meant to restore his home region. Happily, Joel’s played some of his radio-friendly, upbeat tunes, uplifting ballads or relevant songs like the one about the sinking of Manhattan.

But this song is too sad for a benefit concert. Instead I play it hoping to aid, even superficially, in the aftermath of a tragedy occurring in my home region.

I have formed an odd connection between this song and school shootings and for a very odd reason. Not during the news coverage of Columbine itself, but during a retrospective clip segment which aired during Katie Couric’s last morning as co-host of the Today show, the opening of “And So It Goes” played in the background as Ms. Couric talked about her experience of the incident.¹

One of his later songs, "And So It Goes" certainly isn't one of Billy Joel's most popular, or his most successful or even his best. But the imagery presented in this song is amazing. It has come to lend to my personal definition of both vulnerability and resilience.

There is a moment of loss. We feel remorse and sadness. We retreat inward in response to the pain then we feel guilty about retreating. This guilt and this pain consumes us almost entirely. While we lay feeble and vulnerable behind the barricade built deep within our heart, we completely forget the cycle that we desperately hope exists. We know there will be good just as we know there will be bad (or at least we hope we can know this). But we forget the bad while we experience the good and we forget the good while we experience the bad. But then we remember. And so it goes.

Maybe we resolve to emerge from that room within our heart, to abandon that “sanctuary safe and strong.” Maybe we just don’t have any other choice. Maybe the next years of life will be the happiest imaginable. Maybe they will be the most tragic. And so it goes.

And so it goes. We will all soon, I suppose.


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¹ It turns out, I remembered this incorrectly. I was compelled to check the video, which I found online, and “And So It Goes” is actually played during the highlights of Katie Couric’s interview with John F. Kennedy Jr., immediately before her discussion of Columbine.