The highly anticipated new HBO documentary Billy Joel: And So It Goes is more than just another documentary telling the story of a pop star, according to executive producer Steve Cohen, a longtime friend of Joel’s. It’s a revealing, emotional journey into the life, legacy, and layered artistry of one of America’s most enduring singer-songwriters.
“This is not Piano Man,” Cohen emphasized, recalling his first reaction to seeing Joel rehearse The Ballad of Billy the Kid back in 1974. “My head blew off. I never heard anything so powerful and orchestral and cinematic and dynamic.”
Cohen, who met Joel shortly after Piano Man was released and has since served as his creative director and producer on numerous television and live projects, says the documentary comes after years of resistance. “Billy just didn’t want to, he said, ‘I don’t want to tell my story. My story is in my songs, I don’t want to do it.’”
But what later started as a ‘maybe’ quickly turned into a moment of cosmic alignment: “Two weeks later, Todd [Milliner] calls me back and says, ‘Would you be interested if Tom Hanks and Gary Goetzman came on board as executive producers?’ … and they recommend a director … Susan Lacy.”
The acclaimed creator of American Masters, Lacy was adamant: if she was going to tell this story, it had to be honest and independent. “Billy said, ‘Look, I don’t want to tell the story. Let her tell the story … as long as the music is the most important part of the through line of this story, I’m fine,’” according to Cohen.
Read more: Billy Joel documentary ‘And So It Goes’ hits screens this summer
The result, Cohen says, is a raw, richly layered exploration of Joel’s life, one that doesn’t shy away from pain, complexity, or triumph. “There’s a bittersweet quality about watching anybody’s struggles,” he said. “I hope that when you walk away, you then put the needle down on that record and you listen to those songs with a different attitude.”
The documentary also delves into deeply personal aspects of Joel’s life that have rarely been explored, including his relationship with his first wife and former manager, Elizabeth Weber, the explosive rise of his early career, and his family history as Holocaust survivors and classical musicians. “That story has never really been told,” Cohen said. “You’re going to learn things about Billy Joel in the first part of his career that you never knew.”
And for the skeptics? “I think one of the things about this film is that it makes it undeniable that this guy is a genius,” Cohen said. “It makes it undeniable that this guy has affected so many people’s lives in such an incredibly positive way.”
As the film’s title, And So It Goes, suggests, the documentary carries both melancholy and hope. “It is a perfect combination of his classical-based songwriting, his honest emotional lyric writing, and the overriding sadness in that seems to be a through line in his work, and a hopefulness too,” Cohen said.
With part one premiering on July 18 and part two on July 25 on HBO, the documentary is poised to be more than just a nostalgic look back — it’s a reintroduction to a legend whose songs continue to speak to new generations. Or, as Nick Paumgarten put it in the film, according to Cohen: “These songs … they’re not written in amber. They’re real and they’re present and they’re about everyday life.”
