Song Lyric Sunday – Piano Man

Our host of Song Lyric Sunday, Jim Adams, has asked us to find a philosophical song. My first thought was a Bob Dylan song but I have featured him a lot over the years, so I don’t want to repeat something. I remembered Billy Joel’s Piano Man and how he sang about the regulars in the bar. Each one of them had a story to tell, just like any of us, if anyone cares to ask. They would come to the bar to have a drink or two and feel better. To me it is a song that makes you think about life. The good, the bad and the ugly.

The Song

This was inspired by Joel’s experiences playing at The Executive Room, a piano bar in Los Angeles. He worked there for six months in 1972 after his first solo album, Cold Spring Harbor, tanked. The characters in the song are based on real people Joel encountered while working at The Executive Room.

The “waitress practicing politics” is Elizabeth Weber, who ended up becoming his first wife when Joel married her in 1973 (they divorced in 1982).
Joel played under the name Bill Martin, which explains why the patrons in the song call him Bill. Martin is his middle name.

Joel recalled to the Metro newspaper July 6, 2006 his time playing at The Executive Room: “It was a gig I did for about six months just to pay rent. I was living in LA and trying to get out of a bad record contract I’d signed. I worked under an assumed name, the Piano Stylings of Bill Martin, and just bullshitted my way through it. I have no idea why that song became so popular. It’s like a karaoke favorite. The melody is not very good and very repetitious, while the lyrics are like limericks. I was shocked and embarrassed when it became a hit. But my songs are like my kids and I look at that song and think: ‘My kid did pretty well.'”

Regarding the limericks statement, Joel points out that this is best heard in the following verse, which if you read with a sprightly pace, does sound like one:

Now John at the bar is a friend of mine
He gets me my drinks for free
And he’s quick with a joke or to light up your smoke
But there’s someplace that he’d rather be

This is the first song and title track to Joel’s breakthrough album, which he released after signing with Columbia Records. His first album was released by Family Records in 1971, and the contract Joel signed to get that deal came back to haunt him. As is often the case with young musicians, Joel did not understand the contract, and it bound him “for life” to the label. Joel was forced to pay royalties to Family for years after breaking the deal and signing with Columbia.

This song is in waltz time (3/4), which is unusual for a pop song. Some other songs that use this time signature are “Iris” by the Goo Goo Dolls, “Kiss From A Rose” by Seal and Joe Cocker’s version of “With A Little Help From My Friends.”

The line “Paul is a real estate novelist” is about a real estate broker who was a regular at the bar who always claimed to be working on a book. Joel figured Paul would never finish because he was always in the bar.

The harmonica part was inspired by Bob Dylan. Dylan was the first person Joel saw use a strap to hold the harmonica so he could play another instrument at the same time.

This song is one that every piano bar player has to deal with, since unimaginative patrons will inevitably ask for it. Joel points out, however, that the song can be quite dull when played in this format. He told Howard Stern in 2014: “I think it’s a decent song. It doesn’t change too much. When they play it on the piano as an instrumental, it gets really boring because it’s the same thing over and over and over.”
Joel often plays this as the encore at his live shows.

The album version runs 5:37, but the single was cut down to 4:30 to make it more attractive to radio stations, which favored shorter songs.

Elton John makes reference to a piano man in his 1971 song Tiny Dancer. He and Joel became friends and have toured together.

The lyrics, “And he’s talkin’ with Davy who’s still in the Navy and probably will be for life” were inspired by David Heintz. His daughter Lisa told us: “He met Billy Joel in a pub in Spain in 1972 while he was in the Navy. He married while he was in the navy, had three children. He passed away in 2003 of ALS. It really hurts when I hear this song played on the radio and they leave this part out.”

This song has surprising appeal to a younger generation, something that Joel learned when he played the Bonnaroo festival in 2015 and the crowd sang along. He told Entertainment Weekly the response was unexpected, since it’s “an old, long song about a guy at a depressing piano bar.

There is an accordion in the mix, played by Michael Omartian. “It is a nice, subtle addition in the background that you really have to listen for because of the more dominant reed instrument being used,” accordion player Tom Torriglia says. “I like that the accordion doesn’t compete with its cousin, the harmonica, for space in the song. The accordion adds a bit of melancholy.”

The Lyrics

It's nine o'clock on a Saturday
The regular crowd shuffles in
There's an old man sittin' next to me
Makin' love to his tonic and gin
He says, "Son, can you play me a memory?
I'm not really sure how it goes
But it's sad and it's sweet and I knew it complete
When I wore a younger man's clothes"

La, la-la, di-dee-da
La-la, di-dee-da, da-dum

Sing us a song, you're the piano man
Sing us a song tonight
Well, we're all in the mood for a melody
And you've got us feelin' alright

Now John at the bar is a friend of mine
He gets me my drinks for free
And he's quick with a joke or to light up your smoke
But there's some place that he'd rather be
He says, "Bill, I believe this is killing me"
As the smile ran away from his face
"Well, I'm sure that I could be a movie star
If I could get out of this place"

Oh, la, la-la, di-dee-da
La-la, di-dee-da, da-dum

Now Paul is a real estate novelist
Who never had time for a wife
And he's talkin' with Davy, who's still in the Navy
And probably will be for life
And the waitress is practicing politics
As the businessmen slowly get stoned
Yes, they're sharing a drink they call loneliness
But it's better than drinkin' alone

Sing us a song, you're the piano man
Sing us a song tonight
Well, we're all in the mood for a melody
And you've got us feelin' alright

It's a pretty good crowd for a Saturday
And the manager gives me a smile
'Cause he knows that it's me they've been comin' to see
To forget about life for a while
And the piano, it sounds like a carnival
And the microphone smells like a beer
And they sit at the bar and put bread in my jar
And say, "Man, what are you doin' here?"

Oh, la, la-la, di-dee-da
La-la, di-dee-da, da-dum

Sing us a song, you're the piano man
Sing us a song tonight
Well, we're all in the mood for a melody
And you've got us feelin' alright

Writer/s: Billy Joel
Publisher: Universal Music Publishing Group
Lyrics licensed and provided by LyricFind

Courtesy of Songfacts