This week we’re focusing on songs about different types of men, and today’s classic man song of the day is about a “Piano Man,” as written and performed by piano man Billy Joel. The protagonist of this song is a guy who plays piano in a bar, and the song details the various customers of said establishment.
“Piano Man” is somewhat autobiographical. Billy Joel wrote the song about his own stint as a lounge musician in Los Angeles during the period from 1972 to 1973. He’d released his first album, Cold Spring Harbor, in 1971, but there were issues with the album’s sound quality and it didn’t sell very well. Joel wanted out of his recording contract with Family Productions (he wanted to sign with Columbia Records, instead) and essentially hung out undercover in L.A. while the lawyers worked out all the details. By all accounts, Mr. Joel also needed the money, what there was of it.
Billy Joel played piano and sang standards at the now-defunct Executive Room bar, then located at 3953 Wilshire Boulevard in Los Angeles. Due to contractual reasons, he couldn’t use his real name, so he performed under the nom de plume of Bill Martin. (Billy’s real full name is William Martin Joel.)
Here’s what Billy Joel remembers of that time:
“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.”
Joel says that all the characters in the song were inspired by real people he met at the bar. Each verse focuses on a different patron:
- The old man “makin’ love to his tonic and gin” who asks Joel to play him a memory but can’t remember how the song goes
- John the bartender, who wants to be a movie star if he could get out of that place
- Paul, a real estate novelist, “who never had time for a wife”
- Davy, “who’s still in the Navy, and probably will be for life”
They all come to the bar on a Saturday night “to forget about life for awhile.” As the lyrics put it:
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
(Interestingly, some theorize that Joel was playing at a gay bar. It’s true that all the patrons mentioned in the song appear to be male, and the whole Paul chatting up Davy bit kind of smacks of a thing. There’s no indication, however, that the Executive Room was a gay bar.)
Billy Joel recorded “Piano Man” for his 1973 album of the same name, his debut on Columbia Records. (He got the deal with Family Productions sorted out by then.) He hadn’t assembled his regular band yet, so the backing musicians were all well-known studio cats—Larry Carlton and Dean Parks on guitars, Michael Omartian on accordion, Wilton Felder on bass, and Ron Tutt (Elvis’ 70s stick man) on drums. Mr. Joel himself played piano and harmonica.
Released as a single in November of 1973, “Piano Man” hit #25 on the Billboard Hot 100, #16 on the Cash Box Top 100, and #4 on Billboard’s Adult Contemporary chart. More important, it jump started Mr. Joel’s career and became not just a career-defining song but a true and lasting classic.
(A quick personal aside. I actually played harmonica on this tune once when I sat in with a friend’s band on a gig. It was sometime in the early ’80s, at a bar somewhere in Ohio, and, if I recall, I did a really lousy job. There’s a reason I’m known as a drummer, not a harmonica player.)
So here’s today’s daily bonus video of the day, Billy Joel’s official music video for “Piano Man.” The words are so descriptive on this one that I’m not sure we really needed the visuals.
