How the Piano Man Came Back to Life

July 27, 2021 12:39 PM

The time a "stiff" caught fire.
posted by blue shadows (34 comments total)

That's a fantastic story. Thanks for sharing it.
posted by Inkslinger at 1:08 PM on July 27, 2021 [7 favorites]

Wow, that was excellent.
posted by JanetLand at 1:25 PM on July 27, 2021

Oh, man, we were SO CLOSE to a world without Billy Joel. What did we do wrong?
posted by rikschell at 1:30 PM on July 27, 2021 [12 favorites]

amazing story, best of the web. his passion reminds me of the lone-wolf underground engineer that got Graphing Calculator to ship with the Macintosh. and I don't even like billy joel.
posted by j_curiouser at 1:45 PM on July 27, 2021 [2 favorites]

I know "everyone" hates Billy Joel, but this is about as spot-on a summation of his work that I've ever seen, and reminds me why I love to listen to him every once in awhile:

There was some Tin Pan Alley, Elton John Tumbleweed Connection, Mr. Bojangles, and ringing anthem-like choruses that seemed to have been drawn from the same well that fed Springsteen. There was evidence of a Randy Newman-like gift for melody and something like Tom Waits’ knack for lighting small, slice-of-life vignettes with an almost cinematic glow. The whole thing was shot through with a confessional, regular-guy vibe that, though tinged with corniness now and then, was the perfect antidote to the sometimes-operatic bombast of my prog-rock indulgences of the day. This bulgy-eyed guy didn’t take himself all that seriously, made it sound easy, like the songs had just popped into his noggin and out his fingertips while he effortlessly sang along. He sounded young, like he hadn’t found his true voice quite yet, and almost annoyingly talented. In the meantime, he had me, a greenhorn posing as a heard-it-all music critic, singing along on the first play.
posted by chavenet at 1:45 PM on July 27, 2021 [18 favorites]

"Annoyingly talented" sums it up. So earwormy you have to give some grudging respect even if you hate it.
posted by rikschell at 1:48 PM on July 27, 2021 [2 favorites]

I feel the same way about Billy Joel as I feel about Rush and a few other artists. On paper I hate them, for a number of reasons, but any time I actually hear one of their songs on the radio I turn it up because it's a fucking banger.
posted by bondcliff at 1:55 PM on July 27, 2021 [28 favorites]

Oh, man, we were SO CLOSE to a world without Billy Joel. What did we do wrong?
posted by rikschell

Well... one thing we didn't do was start the fire.
posted by Splunge at 1:56 PM on July 27, 2021 [16 favorites]

Well... one thing we didn't do was start the fire.

It's been burning for the longest time.
posted by The_Vegetables at 1:58 PM on July 27, 2021 [6 favorites]

Great read but I have to question some of it. The timing in particular. The story seems to start in January 1974, the day Keith Yates is moving his waterbed. And then it moves forward by days and weeks until toward the end of the article we get:

Its sudden and unusual rise after months of obscurity was the subject of an article in Billboard’s March 9 issue,

I would've been fourteen at the time, proud owner of brand new AM/FM radio -- my first to have an FM option. So I was listening to a lot of FM radio in the early part of 1974 and Piano Man was getting played a lot -- the title track, Ballad of Billy The Kid and Captain Jack in particular. I loved it. I was a fan. This couldn't have been any later than February because I finally bought the album toward the end of March while on family vacation, a tiny dump of a record store in Lahaina.

I guess I'm wondering how I could've been hearing it so much on the radio way up in Vancouver, Canada. Maybe it hadn't stiffed up here. Maybe we were just ahead of crowd. Not that it was a huge hit. Nothing like what would happen with the Stranger a few years later.

Anyway, there I was, late winter 1974, one of Billy Joel's first big deal fans, telling anyone who'd listen to me that he was going to be the next Elton John.

Oh, man, we were SO CLOSE to a world without Billy Joel. What did we do wrong?

A. I'm sorry.

B. If it's any consolation, by the time The Stranger hit in 1977, I was finished with the guy, sick to death of him. Still am for the most part. He seems like an okay guy when interviewed but I just don't buy the shtick.
posted by philip-random at 2:05 PM on July 27, 2021

* gives The_Vegetables an admiring slow clap *
posted by Greg_Ace at 2:26 PM on July 27, 2021 [1 favorite]

I like to imagine that the twist of "Piano Man" is that the Piano Man doesn't realize he is in a gay bar. John, who buys him drinks. Paul, who never had time for a wife. Davy, who's still in the Navy. "Man, what are you doing here?"
posted by DirtyOldTown at 2:41 PM on July 27, 2021 [60 favorites]

DirtyOldTown: "the Piano Man doesn't realize he is in a gay bar"

So that's what a real-estate novelist is...
posted by chavenet at 3:42 PM on July 27, 2021 [7 favorites]

McSweeney’s piece on Piano Man.
posted by FencingGal at 3:55 PM on July 27, 2021 [10 favorites]

The story seems to start in January 1974

I'm not sure I'm following, but I think technically the story begins "Released in the fall of 1973 ..." and perhaps the "rise after months of obscurity" counts those months before January?
posted by Wobbuffet at 4:18 PM on July 27, 2021

I really hope someone is writing a history of MeFi 2007-2012 in the style of "We Didn't Start The Fire." [1] [2]
posted by unliteral at 4:23 PM on July 27, 2021 [1 favorite]

and perhaps the "rise after months of obscurity" counts those months before January?

but I was hearing it regularly on the radio in an obscure backwater definitely by early February. Maybe my local cool (Canadian) radio station just picked up on it independent of Mr. Yates' efforts and initiatives.

Either way. Good on him. Piano Man's a great album and this thread gives me a great excuse to listen to it again.
posted by philip-random at 5:32 PM on July 27, 2021 [1 favorite]

This story is probably apocryphal (or just plain BS) but it's a good enough story that I'll thank you nice folks not to tell me if that turns out to be the case.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 6:05 PM on July 27, 2021

> I know "everyone" hates Billy Joel

I'll cite something I wrote here a decade ago: You don't hate Billy Joel, you hate the lack of control you have over when you get to hear Billy Joel.
posted by ardgedee at 6:06 PM on July 27, 2021 [15 favorites]

Now John at the bar is a friend of mine
He gets my drinks for free
And he’s quick with a joke, or to light up your smoke
Cause folks smoked back in ‘73
posted by Naberius at 6:25 PM on July 27, 2021 [8 favorites]

Is now a good time to mention Billy Joel’s brief fling with heavy metal before his solo career? (And if anyone has this album I desperately want to hear it…)
posted by jzb at 6:43 PM on July 27, 2021 [2 favorites]

Maybe my local cool (Canadian) radio station just picked up on it independent of Mr. Yates' efforts

Works for me--I don't even like Billy Joel. At the same time, this page suggests Piano Man entered CKLG's "Vancouver's Top 20 albums" on March 22, so your station may have been well ahead of the curve locally too while another station in the same market recorded a timeline that fits the story (further lists; further resources).
posted by Wobbuffet at 6:48 PM on July 27, 2021 [2 favorites]

I don't know a single family alive in 1985 who didn't have a copy of Billy Joel's Greatest Hits Vol I & II by the time 1986 started. It was the most ubiquitous album ever, and for quite a while too. It's an amazing collection of songs. He remains inescapable even to this day.

He's not a giant favorite of mine, but I know all the words to a whole bunch of his songs, and I bet a lot of people here do, too.
posted by hippybear at 7:00 PM on July 27, 2021 [8 favorites]

jzb, I downloaded .mp3s of that Attila album a few years ago for free, but I couldn't tell you what the site was. It was a very brief googling that got me to it. Here's a youtube link if you can't find anything else.

As far as it goes, it's not really all that bad. I have a few tracks from it in my regular music rotation. "Tear this Castle Down" is probably my favorite.
posted by Mister Moofoo at 7:14 PM on July 27, 2021 [1 favorite]

(And if anyone has this album I desperately want to hear it…)

I have that album. It's pretty good. California Flash and Amplifier Fire are probably my favorites. I got it because I'm apparently the only person who likes Billy Joel. It's been explained to me many times but I don't really understand the hate for him. I think of it as the Nickleback paradox. I don't like them and it's widely understood that "everybody" hates them but they sell eleventy million albums, so somebody must like them out there and I'm not going to question that. I don't get it but I understand it.

As for the article - That was a fun read. The radio and record businesses are very strange. I've read several similar stories of one DJ or radio station liking a song or album that nobody had ever heard and making it blow up but this might be the first time I've read the account of the record label actively fighting back against the success.
posted by Clinging to the Wreckage at 8:36 PM on July 27, 2021

We're not that removed from the days of physical media but it seems like several lifetimes since you'd go to someone's house and ask to look through their records….unless that was just something I did. Lots of people owned this one. Actually, lots of people had nearly the exact same record collection. It think everyone I knew owned Aqualung.

I was curious as to when it would have first charted on (my local station) CKLW's 1974 weekly top 30. Apart from Seasons in the Sun being a top 30 hit for far too long, it was a really great station.
posted by bonobothegreat at 8:54 PM on July 27, 2021 [2 favorites]

this page suggests Piano Man entered CKLG's "Vancouver's Top 20 albums" on March 22, so your station may have been well ahead of the curve locally too while another station in the same market recorded a timeline that fits the story

bingo!

Vancouver's the town in question and CKLG-FM was my go-to station. Which, it should be noted, was still a darned cool outfit at that point in time. The DJs were independent operators, responsible for programming their own shows (as opposed to working from playlists imposed by management). In other words, if they liked it, they played it. They didn't care what hype the industry was (or wasn't) foisting on them*. So that would explain the how and why of Piano Man becoming a local hit. I also recall Queen's first album getting a lot of play at the time, which is another another anomaly. If you dig into their history, you generally find they were ignored in the Americas until at least their third album.

This freedom was all about to be lost unfortunately. The corporate types were about to hook up with The Consultants and effectively neuter everything that was ever good and cool about the FM rock environment. The DJs at CKLG actually went on strike about it. But they lost. The unrepentant ones got fired. The rest signed on with the corporate beast, ditched their torn jeans for leisure suits and did what they were f***ing told. Which come 1977, meant playing Billy Joel's The Stranger to death.

It's a good thing punk rock got invented around this time or we'd all have been eaten long ago.
posted by philip-random at 7:05 AM on July 28, 2021 [2 favorites]

Am I the weirdo for being pulled out of the McSweeney's piece because they place it in Long island, when "everybody" (not everybody) knows he wrote the song about his experiences play "The Executive Room" in Los Angeles? (https://www.popspotsnyc.com/billy_joel_piano_man/)

Also, how typically LA that it was replaced with a strip mall.
posted by drewbage1847 at 10:10 AM on July 28, 2021

This is a great story.
posted by Oyéah at 5:12 PM on July 28, 2021

This album is available form Soulseek QT and information (including a rather splendid picture) is here. Search SoulSeek for "Atilla aiwe" and it should be available... it is rather wonderful in a quirky sort of way.
posted by IndelibleUnderpants at 7:45 AM on July 29, 2021

This is a great story but it does seem like a stretch. Especially the grizzled radio veterans getting a wave of calls cryptically raving about how it's as good as Sgt. Peppers and just going, huh, that's weird. But it was a simpler time, a time before Billy Joel was a star. How innocent we were.

But does remind of this wonderful Piano Man story that Alan Tudyk tells about how finding himself in that song made him extra motivated to get the hell out of that song.
posted by ulotrichous at 2:00 PM on July 29, 2021 [7 favorites]

How innocent we were.

All of us were innocent. Even Billy Joel.
posted by hippybear at 5:43 PM on July 29, 2021

Yeah, I'm not a Joel fan, but he's way more talented than he has a right to be, gotta say. It's just that I hear Harry Chapin "On Broadway!" more than the other comparisons. All analogies are suspect, though ... And if Joel acknowledges the writer's particulars, then props well-earned, sir, well-earned!
posted by Chitownfats at 4:08 PM on August 1, 2021

When Doug Stegmeyer, Billy Joel's bass player and backing vocalist tried to get Billy to deal with his drug problem, Billy Joel fired Doug Stegmeyer, sending him into depression and eventual suicide.

Fuck Billy Joel.
posted by mikelieman at 3:30 AM on August 2, 2021