Hear & Now Podcast

This Night: It's Only You and I (and Beethoven)

We're back with another episode of Hear & Now! For this episode we're going to be taking a look at "This Night" by Billy Joel, the fourth track on his album "An Innocent Man" which was released in 1983. Something you may not know is that he had some help from a co-writer for this song. Who is the co-writer, you ask? None other than Ludwig van Beethoven himself! That's right, the chorus of "This Night" was inspired by the second movement of Beethoven's "Pathétique," also known as his "Piano Sonata No. 8," which is part of his 9th Symphony. The first half of the podcast breaks down the musical structure of the two pieces and compares the similarities, while the second half looks at Billy Joel's performance of "This Night" as well as his love for classical music and Beethoven as a whole. Enjoy!

Bohemian Rhapsody: Does Nothing Really Matter?

Welcome to Episode 1 of Hear & Now! Today we dive into the song "Bohemian Rhapsody" by Queen and find the similarities between this song and Beethoven's "Moonlight Sonata" as well as Gilbert and Sullivan's "When I Was A Lad" from their opera HMS Pinafore. We'll also look at the meaning of the song and how Queen would perform "Bohemian Rhapsody" live while still holding true to the classical influences of the song.