Billy Joel wrote “Piano Man” whereas hiding from his personal document deal. It unintentionally turned his signature tune.
It’s additionally essentially the most well-known tune he nearly doesn’t respect. Launched on November 2, 1973, it wasn’t even the observe that made him a star, and for many years Joel has stated the melody is repetitive, the rhymes are corny, and he was “shocked and embarrassed when it turned a success.” To Vulture he put it otherwise: “It’s like a child: typically it pisses me off, however I all the time adore it.” That’s the model folks don’t hear over the karaoke singalongs. The tune is nearer to reportage than nostalgia, written by somebody who, on the time, was actively making an attempt to vanish from his personal profession.
Joel was “hiding out” in Los Angeles, as he later instructed the Library of Congress, making an attempt to interrupt free from what he noticed as an exploitative contract. He couldn’t launch music beneath his personal title, so he took a hundred-dollar-a-week job at a piano bar referred to as The Government Room, performing as “Invoice Martin” – Invoice being quick for Billy, Martin being his precise center title.
“Piano Man” is what got here out of these six months of enjoying for strangers whereas pretending to be another person.
He got here up with the melody first, then stuffed within the characters and the state of affairs little by little over a number of weeks, which issues as a result of it’s constructed, not transcribed. None of it’s unintended. He constructed it that manner.
Nearly nothing within the lyrics is invented. John the bartender was actual. He gave Joel free drinks. Paul, the “actual property novelist,” was an precise agent who talked about writing a e-book however by no means appeared to get round to it.
Davy, whose full title was David Heintz, actually was within the Navy and actually had met Joel in a Spanish pub. His daughter Lisa later confirmed that Heintz had married throughout his Navy years, had three kids, and died in 2003, which makes the road “in all probability will likely be for all times” land otherwise as soon as you already know it.
And the waitress “practising politics”? That was Elizabeth Weber, who would later turn into Joel’s first spouse.
That grounding is what offers the tune its grip. If you happen to’re making an attempt to know the Billy Joel “Piano Man” which means, the intuition is normally to search for symbolism. There isn’t a lot. The road “they’re sharing a drink they name loneliness, but it surely’s higher than ingesting alone” works as a result of it’s plain and unornamented.
It’s simply one thing you discover after watching the identical folks order the identical drinks and repeat the identical conversations for lengthy sufficient. No one leaves. However no one needs to sit down at dwelling both.
There’s a second within the second verse the place John turns to Joel and says “Invoice, I imagine that is killing me.” Most listeners hear it because the bartender addressing the piano man.
It’s additionally Joel addressing himself, the person performing beneath a borrowed title in a bar he had no intention of staying in. The pseudonym hiding in plain sight in his personal lyric is the type of factor you solely catch as soon as you already know the backstory.
Among the most revealing particulars aren’t even in regards to the folks. They’re sensory. “The piano appears like a carnival.” “The microphone smells like a beer.” These traces do greater than describe the room. They drop you into it. That’s why the tune nonetheless will get referred to as probably the most immersive items of storytelling in standard music. You don’t image the bar. You possibly can nearly hear it and odor it. The three/4 waltz time signature helps with that, giving the entire thing a barely woozy, round momentum that mirrors the routines it describes.
The refrain, “Sing us a tune, you’re the piano man,” isn’t only a request. It’s the transaction that retains all the things shifting. “They sit on the bar and put bread in my jar.” That’s the association. He performs, they tip, and for a couple of minutes everybody will get to really feel alright. The query “Man, what are you doing right here?” cuts in each instructions. The shoppers hear somebody too good for the room. Joel, caught there beneath a pretend title, might be asking himself the identical factor.
Everybody within the tune has “someplace that he’d reasonably be,” together with the particular person telling the story. The bartender needs out. The novelist by no means begins. The outdated man asks for a reminiscence he can’t fairly bear in mind. And Joel, hiding from his personal contract, is enjoying songs for folks making an attempt to overlook their lives for some time.
The tune has picked up a second life on-line. One long-running principle suggests The Government Room sounds much less like a generic bar and extra like a homosexual bar. Paul “by no means had time for a spouse.” Davy is “nonetheless within the Navy.”
The lads sit collectively whereas the waitress strikes round them. When the concept was put to Joel in 2024, he laughed and stated he’d by no means thought-about it, then began singing “Within the Navy.” Which is about as near a solution as you’re going to get.
For a very long time, he didn’t even wish to play the tune. He instructed Howard Stern in 2014 that it will get “boring” as an instrumental as a result of it “doesn’t change a lot.” The harmonica half, impressed by Bob Dylan’s use of a neck rack, is among the few issues that breaks the repetition. Nevertheless it doesn’t matter. The group received’t let him drop it.
Within the UK it by no means even charted as a single, but the Piano Man Best Hits compilation spent over 130 weeks on the album chart. The tune bypassed the charts solely and went straight into the tradition. The Library of Congress added it to the Nationwide Recording Registry in 2015 anyway.
What “Piano Man” will get proper, and what most songs about bars by no means fairly handle, is the particular loneliness of people that have chosen to not be alone. The outdated man together with his gin. The bartender who may have been a film star. The novelist who by no means writes. Joel doesn’t repair something for them. He simply performs.
And for one evening, that’s sufficient.
Loneliness sells. It simply helps in the event you give it a refrain.
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Billy Joel Piano Man Lyrics
Verse 1
It’s 9 o’clock on a Saturday
The common crowd shuffles in
There’s an outdated man sitting subsequent to me
Making like to his tonic and gin
He says, “Son, are you able to play me a reminiscence?
I’m probably not positive the way it goes
Nevertheless it’s unhappy, and it’s candy, and I knew it full
Once I wore a youthful man’s garments”
Chorus
La, la-la, di-dee-da
La-la di-dee-da da-dum
Refrain
Sing us a tune, you’re the piano man
Sing us a tune tonight
Nicely, we’re all within the temper for a melody
And also you’ve acquired us feeling alright
Verse 2
Now John on the bar is a pal of mine
He will get me my drinks without spending a dime
And he’s fast with a joke, or to mild up your smoke
However there’s someplace that he’d reasonably be
He says, “Invoice, I imagine that is killing me”
Because the smile ran away from his face
“Nicely, I’m positive that I may very well be a film star
If I may get out of this place”
Chorus
Oh, la, la-la, di-dee-da
La-la di-dee-da da-dum
Verse 3
Now Paul is an actual property novelist
Who by no means had time for a spouse
And he’s speaking with Davy, who’s nonetheless within the navy
And possibly will likely be for all times
And the waitress is working towards politics
Because the businessmen slowly get stoned
Sure, they’re sharing a drink they name loneliness
Nevertheless it’s higher than ingesting alone
Refrain
Sing us a tune, you’re the piano man
Sing us a tune tonight
Nicely, we’re all within the temper for a melody
And also you’ve acquired us feeling alright
Verse 4
It’s a reasonably good crowd for a Saturday
And the supervisor offers me a smile
‘Trigger he is aware of that it’s me they’ve been coming to see
To overlook about life for some time
And the piano, it appears like a carnival
And the microphone smells like a beer
They usually sit on the bar and put bread in my jar
And say, “Man, what are you doing right here?”
Chorus
Oh, la, la-la, di-dee-da
La-la di-dee-da da-dum
Refrain
Sing us a tune, you’re the piano man
Sing us a tune tonight
Nicely, we’re all within the temper for a melody
And also you’ve acquired us feeling alright