Remember the band in Step Brothers that was playing at the Catalina Wine Mixer? Uptown Girl? Horatio Sanz, playing the lead singer of the band, claims they only play 80s Billy Joel songs as the crowd calls for obstensibly non-80s songs like "We Didn't Start The Fire". If we want to get nitpicky, Storm Front, the album "We Didn't Start The Fire" is on, came out in 1989, but the joke is that there is a clear mark in Billy Joel's career between his early doo wop stuff and his later material.

The thing is, the "later stuff" period was really short. I'm always surprised when I'm reminded that Billy Joel released his last pop album 20 years ago - 1993's River of Dreams. Remember River of Dreams? It was nominated for an album of the year Grammy. It also produced one of the weirdest music videos of 1993, for the title track, directed by Andy Morahan. So let's check it out.

First of all we should get out of the way that I really dislike Billy Joel's music even though I was really into this song as a kid. So this is going to be a little biased.

"River of Dreams" is about a river (of dreams), so for this video we get the Billy Joel we all know and love - river boat Billy Joel. He starts the video by boating down the river like a seasoned old salty river man. Just Billy Joel and the river, man and nature.

This is all absurd, of course. I don't know a lot about Billy Joel but I do know he's not a god damn river boat captain. But we don't really have time to let this sink in. Soon the funky beat kicks in and Billy Joel is on an incomplete bridge over the river standing in front of three of the most uncomfortable looking backup singers I've ever seen in a music video. They hardly move, and when they do they move like accountants reluncantly playing soulful back up dancers at a company talent show. They of course all have ridiculous looking sunglasses on because they are soul men. Soul men of the river.

Billy Joel is showing his usual level of unawareness of his surroundings, feeling the vibe and busting out all the moves he's been practicing in the hotel mirror when we start to get introduced to an incomprehensible series of images of river life. I cannot for the life of me tell what is going on anywhere in the video's narrative sections. There's some kids in a car, a guy throwing a bag into the river, and god knows what else. Eventually you just let it ride and with each passing scene you think "that's life on the river, man, just throwing bags of shit in the river".

One issue with figuring out what is going on is that this video moves at a disorienting speed. One minute you think "oh wow what is Billy Joel doing" and then for 2 seconds you're looking at some dude's abs. Now he's staring at you - I guess he noticed you looking at his abs? The disorientation is compounded by the fact that many of the shots have some sort of wobbly water filter on them, distorting the image for no good reason unless we're supposed to think we're in the river looking out.

I know that this is supposed to be showing river life, but there are some truly WTF moments in this. One is a brief shot of a woman painting a picture - the picture is the album cover for River of Dreams, but she is definitely staring intently at something while she paints this picture as if to be painting an object that exists in real life. The album cover for River of Dreams is not something that exists in real life - it's Billy Joel with a river flowing through his head. What could she possibly be looking at?

Also, there is this:

At the end Billy Joel River Man rides off into the sunset on his rented boat. He wouldn't release any new pop music after that, choosing to life the life he was born for - a quiet existence on the river.

Adam Fairholm is the co-founder and lead developer of IMVDb. You can find him on twitter at @adamfairholm.