Perhaps the primary reason I’ve so far avoided writing about Billy Joel is that it would take days, weeks even, to record all the related memories. He was in some ways the defining soundtrack of my early years, thanks to a passion on the part of several family members. We had the albums. We quoted the lyrics at the dinner table. We went to concerts at the Cumberland County Civic Center (which has, by some miracle, avoided the corporate rechristening so common these days — and which also, I just learned, is the same age as me). We were fired up by his token bit of proffered wisdom (“Don’t take any shit from anybody”) and fascinated with his love life. This was long before Christie Brinkley came on (and then departed) the scene, back when he was married to his manager, and I can even now picture the oddly inky drawing I made, at the tender age of 4 or 5, of Billy and Elizabeth together.

Years later, a babysitter and I spent much of our evening together dancing to the songs on “Glass Houses.” She was blonde, and named Heather, and boys liked her, and we played air keyboards, and it was pretty much the epitome of cool.

And years after that, my mother finagled a chance to go to the Civic Center the afternoon before a show, to watch the set-up and the sound check. The two of us sat there happily watching the roadies, but just before Billy himself appeared a security guy came along to inquire just what we thought we were doing there. My mother caved, and kicked herself for it afterwards; we watched the rest of the sound check through a crack in a set of metal doors into the arena.

And the shows, oh the shows. There he’d be, in his blazer and his jeans and his Tretorns. I mean! Was there ever a cooler outfit! Playing the piano and the harmonica, sometimes at the same time, and running around with all that energy. It’s hard to imagine now, with the old, pudgy, alcoholic  Billy lodged in our collective minds, but he and his band put on a hell of a display.

This morning, my radio landed on him just as he sang “Turn out the light,” and I was transported right back there, standing in the crowd, the lights going out on that line. Did that happen at every show? Did it even happen at more than one show I saw? I don’t know, but I can’t forget the thrill of standing in the dark with thousands of people, and screaming when the lights came back just in time for Billy’s gruff puppy-dog “Aw don’t try to save me.”

I could go on. And on and on. Maybe some other day.