Billy Joel — Tell Her About It

JUL 01 1983 · 12:00

Billy Joel — Tell Her About It (1983) Director: Jay Dubin Era: Early MTV Era (1983) - Peak of the music video boom; artists leveraged MTV's explosive growth to extend chart reach via high-concept, narrative-driven clips Exceptionally high curatorial value as a primary document of the early MTV era's high-concept video form. The video is a fully realized period simulation — a miniature television variety-show production — that simultaneously functions as a pop chart vehicle, a comedy short, and a cultural history lesson. Its multi-layered intertextuality (Motown homage, Ed Sullivan parody, Cold War gag, Dangerfield cameo) makes it a rich research artifact across music history, television studies, and 1980s American popular culture. Context: Released in 1983 as the lead single from An Innocent Man, 'Tell Her About It' was Billy Joel's loving homage to the Motown and early soul sounds of his adolescence. The album was explicitly conceived as a tribute to American popular music of the late 1950s and early 1960s, including doo-wop and soul. The video amplifies this nostalgia by staging a full period-accurate Ed Sullivan Show parody, referencing one of the most iconic cultural touchstones of the era — the same program that launched the British Invasion. The video's comedic tone, multi-demographic cutaway structure (teens at home, crowds at appliance stores, a Soviet cosmonaut in space), and cameo-driven finale represent the high-concept, entertainment-first approach that defined the early MTV era, when videos were a primary chart driver. The song reached #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 on September 18, 1983, and peaked at #4 on the UK Singles Chart. Director notes: Directed by Jay Dubin; produced by Jon Small (IMVDb, IMDb confirmed). The concept — staging Joel as a 1963 Ed Sullivan Show performer billed as 'B.J. and the Affordables' — originated with Dubin, who pitched it to Joel after their Live from Long Island concert special collaboration. Per Songfacts, Dubin recalled: 'I said, Hey Billy, wouldn't it be great if you were on the Ed Sullivan Show?' Joel agreed immediately. The video prominently features Will Jordan as an Ed Sullivan imitator, period-accurate variety-show staging, multi-location cutaways of viewers watching on TV, and a comedic closing cameo by Rodney Dangerfield — arranged as a reciprocal gesture after Joel wrote the theme for Dangerfield's 1983 film Easy Money. A gag subtitle scene shows a Soviet cosmonaut in space with Cyrillic lyrics. The on-screen date stamp reads 'Sunday, July 31, 1963, 8:34 PM,' though July 31, 1963 was actually a Wednesday.