Having been born the year the original came out, hearing it again full of events I very much recognize makes it feel so different. I love it, but I do not appreciate the emotions that it is giving me. Not in the least, the growing sense that the rest of the list would be better served by just the line “I can’t take it anymore” on a 3 minute loop

I was born in ‘76 so when the original came out it was a reflection upon the current world we were stuck with. For me it was “this is how we got where we are today. This is what they did to us.” Hearing this version, with so much history I’ve lived through and I’m still emotionally carrying around, is entirely different. I really appreciate this song and look forward to it being re-written every 30-40 years. Although, if “social media” gets wind of this, it’ll be remade every December and posted on TikTok.

The issue I’ve seen pointed out with this version, and I agree, is that Billy Joel set the events more or less in order and had more clever turns of phrase to break up the monotony. This feels, perhaps appropriately, like an algorithm found the best fit for the chosen events to scan properly. I kind of got mental whiplash listening to it.