Lyrics to
Souvenir

This version of Souvenir was released by Billy Joel in 1974.

Our About Billy Joel page at Decade Lyrics includes the lyrics for Souvenir from 1974 as well as all of the other lyrics from Billy Joel that we have in our lyrics database.

Here's more interesting things in songs and lyrics tied to Billy Joel or about the 1970s in general.

A picture postcard
A folded stub
A program of the play
File away your photographs
Of your holiday

And your mementos
Will turn to dust
But that’s the price you pay
For every year’s a souvenir
That slowly fades away
Every year’s a souvenir
That slowly fades away

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Billy Joel has released many songs over the years besides Souvenir. Billy Joel released songs from 1971 to 1993 spanning across albums like Cold Spring Harbor, Piano Man, Streetlife Serenade, Turnstiles, The Stranger, 52nd Street, Glass Houses, The Nylon Curtain, An Innocent Man, The Bridge, Storm Front, and River Of Dreams. Decade Lyrics has over lyrics & songs by Billy Joel.

If you're a fan of popular 1970s songs looking for more songs from 1974 or the 1970s overall, you've come to the right place!

About Lyrics and Souvenir by Billy Joel

The lyrics to Souvenir are just the words, phrases, verses and chorus that Billy Joel used when the song was created in 1974. The lyrics to Souvenir have both easy-to-spot meanings and hidden metaphors that have been discussed by the music press and fans, but only Billy Joel and any collaborators know all of the inspirations for the song.

If you like etymology or breaking apart phrases and words, it is easy to understand the lyrics to Souvenir by Billy Joel. The word "lyric" itself derives from the Latin word lyricus, with the actual English word lyrics applied to the definition "words set to music" listed in Stainer and Barrett's 1876 Dictionary of Musical Terms. Continuing the chain, the Latin word lyricus derives from the Greek word λυρικός or lyrikós. This somewhat means "poetry accompanied by the lyre" or "words set to music." You can easily see that by looking at the background of the word lyric, that the "lyrics to Souvenir" means the words set to the music of Souvenir, or poetry accompanied by the lyre played by Billy Joel. The singular form "lyric" is still used to mean the complete words to a song. However, the singular form lyric is also commonly used to refer to a specific line (or phrase) within a song's lyrics. Hence, by this analysis of word structure, you could say that the lyric to Souvenir and the lyrics to Souvenir are both one and the same thing. None of this talk about the word Lyrics is really relevant to fans of Billy Joel who came here looking just for the lyrics to Souvenir, but we feel it is still fun to learn what's behind commonly used words and lyrics in songs.

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