ビリーの自叙伝 Biography of Billy

ファンの皆様、海を越えたはるか彼方のビリー情報はどうやって仕入れていますか？

ネット社会、オフィシャルページ始め、Facebook, Twitter, Instagramなど最新のニュースは手軽に手に入る時代です。

私の情報源で一番多いのは、ビリーの自叙伝。東京ドームツアーのチラシで、日本語版が発売になるといのをみて、ビリーの情報は英語で！とUK版をアマゾンで購入したのがきっかけで何冊か読むことに。そこにあったビリーの人生は歴史の教科書よりもはるかに惹きつけられるものがあり、またそれを知ることによって、わからなかった歌の歌詞の裏にある想いなどが少しだけ理解できたような気がして、また違った歌の表情が見えてくるので、時間があるときはよく彼の本を読んでいます。

お正月休みが長く、案外時間が取れたので、以前購入して斜めに読んでいた本を２冊読み返すことに。今回読み返した本が２冊とも視点が違う方向で書かれていたので面白かった。

一つはBilly Joel The Definitie Biography

こちらはChapterのタイトルにもビリーの曲を使っていて、その曲にまつわるビリーの当時の状況や、できた背景などたくさん書いてあり、歌についていろいろ知りたい方はおすすめ。

もう一つはBilly And The Joel-The American Rock Star And His German Family Story

これはビリーだけでなく、祖父の時代から、戦争に翻弄された家族、アメリカで築いた家族、ヨーロッパに渡った父が築いた家族、ビリー自身が築いた家族色々なことが書いてあり、ビリーの家族への深い愛情、そして家族とは？と自身のことも色々考える機会を与えてくれる素敵な本でした。

ネイティブではないので、日本語に比べ、読むのに時間もかかり、固有名詞の理解も時間がかかるけど、ビリーに関する本を見るたび、どんな素敵な宝石箱より、素敵な宝物が出てくる気がして、ワクワクします。日本語で出てないのが残念ですが、ネットで調べるとオークションとかで、１０年くらい前に発売した日本語版が購入できるかもしれないです。もし英語がお好きな方はぜひいくつか自叙伝を読んで見てください。どんな恋愛小説よりもどんな歴史物よりも最高に感動します。

Biography of Billy

How did you get any information about Billy who lives in overseas?  We live in internet society.  We can easily get lots of latest information through Facebook, Twitter or Instagram. My most important source about Billy is his biographies.  When I went to see his concert at Tokyo Dome, I noticed advertising paper about his biography would be published in Japanese.  However, I would like to get his information in English.  I checked Amazon and bought his biographies published in UK.  It was the start to read his biographies.  I was surprised his history was great and hard to compare with any other big history books or love stories.  After knowing his stories, I feel I can see different side and face of his songs.  Whenever I am free, I read his biographies.  

I had enough winter vacation.  I tried to read two biographies I bought about 2 years ago.   These are written different point of view.  Both of them are interested.

First one:  Billy Joel The Definite Biology

This book describes about how was Billy's feeling or background when he wrote songs.  If you want to know about these songfests or his situation at that time, it might be very interesting.

The other one:  Billy Joel And The Joel-The American Rock Star And His German Family Story

This book is written about not only Billy but his family members.  It has been started since his grandfather's days.  You can read about family which involved wars, family created at US, another family Billy's father made in Europe, and family Billy himself created.  We can understand how his affection toward family members are deep.  The story give us an opportunity to think about how about our family itself.  What a wonderful book!

My mother tongue is not English.  Compare with Japanese, it takes much time to read these.  It also take lot of time to understand proper nouns.  Even so, Billy's biologies are just like a treasure box for me.  I always feel excited when I open each page.  These books are not published in Japanese , If you want to buy such kind of books, check internet.  I hope you can find that at Amazon.  If you like English, please check and read some of his biologies.  I guarantee these are very very interesting more than any other love stories, history books, detective stories or fictions.