I'm reading this book on Winston Churchill's decision to try and capture, and if not, fire upon and sink, the French Fleet during WW II in July of 1940. He ultimately coordinates a raid on multiple ports in multiple countries within days of each other to capture the French Fleet to help Britain defeat the Germans. Churchill believed if the Germans got their hands on the French Fleet Britain would ultimately fall to Hitler. And if Hitler had at his disposal the combined might of the naval hardware of not only his force but the Navy of Italy, Japan, France, and Britain (the world's largest armada) the United States would be no match and Hitler's visions of world domination would become a reality. It resulted in most ports and French vessels being taken with no fighting and one port had a minor altercation aboard a submarine ending in four deaths. The major standoff came at Mers El Kebir just outside the city of Oran in Algeria. It was there that British troops fired on the French, their close ally for the last 125 years, killing over 1,100 French servicemen and sinking two vessels before capturing the rest of the ships. There is more drama and twists and turns but I don't want to bore you.
Never knowing this story existed until a few days ago when I came upon a doc on Netflix during complete and utter boredom. I am now consumed by it. This was the turning point in the war now in my opinion. Not D-Day. No disrespect to that accomplishment but if Churchill was not brought to power, this world would be a very different place. His predecessor and Joe Kennedy (JFK's father), who was the U.S. Ambassador to Great Britain, preached the chorus of appeasement and everything will be peachy between them and Hitler. It ultimately cost Neville Chamberlain his seat at the table and Joe Kennedy fell out of favor with president Roosevelt and was asked to resign.
In the book they mention the Siegfried Line: the imaginary line between Germany and the Western European countries that had yet to fall to the 3rd Reich.
And immediately my brain makes the connection to Billy Joel. I honestly think my brain can beat Google Search in recognizing the man's songs. Or as my wife says, "Everything goes back to Billy eventually". I can’t help it. His music reached out of those late 70’s early 80’s speakers, when my father would repeatedly play him very early on in my childhood, grabbed a hold of me and has held on tight for the last 38 years. I really don't know why. Or why no other recording artist's catalog has ingrained itself in my life like Billy's. It just has. I firmly believe that you don't choose the music that you listen to, the music chooses you.
I'll admit this song gets very little playtime in my world. I haven't listened to it in years. As soon as I came upon the mention in the book I immediately listened to it a few times with the words in front of me. In my opinion, he perfectly matched the feelings of the soldiers from the perspective of a French soldier as is relayed in this book pertaining to their views on the war to that point. The tempo of the song is upbeat as is the lyrics. Which is usually not how Billy writes. See Allentown. Upbeat tempo and music, much darker and gloomy lyrically.
But what I'm amazed by and really don't know the answer to is what was Billy's inspiration? What did he read that inspired him to write about this particular piece of world history? He probably wrote it in his late teens or early twenties. Did he write it at the Rock House in Dix Hills? He's said many times he's a big history buff and would of liked to have been a history teacher of the piano didn't pan out. It just seems like an odd choice of subject matter. Is Billy a big WW2 buff? I find that guys that are into history have a favorite war they like to read about. For me it's WW2, my father is big into the Civil War, my buddy loves reading about Vietnam, etc...
Does anyone know what was Billy's inspiration for writing this song?
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