"Piano Man" was
Billy JoelWilliam Martin "Billy" Joel is an American musician and pianist, singer-songwriter, and classical composer. Since releasing his first hit song, "Piano Man", in 1973, Joel has become the sixth best-selling recording artist and the third best-selling solo artist in the United States, according to...
's first major hit and his
signature songA signature song is the one song that a popular and well-established singer or band is most closely identified with or best known for, even if they have had success with a variety of songs...
. "Piano Man" was released as a single in November 1st, 1973 and has been on several albums. The song peaked at #25 on the
Billboard Hot 100The Billboard Hot 100 is the United States music industry standard singles popularity chart issued weekly by Billboard magazine. Chart rankings are based on radio play and sales; the tracking-week for sales begins on Monday and ends on Sunday, while the radio play tracking-week runs from Wednesday...
chart in April, 1974.
Song background
"Piano Man" is a fictionalized retelling of Joel's experience as a piano-lounge singer in
Los AngelesLos Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...
at the Executive Lounge and Joel has stated that all of the characters depicted in the song were based on real people. Joel had moved from New York to L.A. to record his first album,
Cold Spring HarborCold Spring Harbor was Billy Joel's first solo album, and was released in 1971. He had already released several albums as a member of the bands The Hassles and Attila...
which was unsuccessful, in large part because of the mastering error by the album's producers at Family Productions, the first label that signed Joel. After this bad experience, Joel wanted to leave his contract with Family Productions for
Columbia RecordsColumbia Records is an American record label, owned by Japan's Sony Music Entertainment, operating under the Columbia Music Group with Aware Records. It was founded in 1888, evolving from an earlier enterprise, the American Graphophone Company — successor to the Volta Graphophone Company...
, but the contract that he'd signed made this very difficult. So Joel stated that he was "hiding out" at the L.A. bar, performing under the name Bill Martin, while lawyers at Columbia Records tried to get him out of his first record deal. Joel's own personal feelings about the failure of his first album and his professional frustrations at this time are expressed in the failed dreams of the characters in his song.
Content
The verses of the song are sung from the point of view of a bar piano player who focuses mainly on everyone else at the bar: an old man, John the bartender, the waitress, businessmen, and bar regulars like "
real estateIn general use, esp. North American, 'real estate' is taken to mean "Property consisting of land and the buildings on it, along with its natural resources such as crops, minerals, or water; immovable property of this nature; an interest vested in this; an item of real property; buildings or...
novelist" Paul and
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sailor, Davey. Most of these characters have unfulfilled dreams, and the pianist's job, it seems, is to help them "forget about life for a while". The chorus, in bar-room sing-along style, comes from the bar patrons themselves, who plead, "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 feeling all right."
The song's style and subject are highly reminiscent of fellow Long Islander Harry Chapin's story- songs.
Releases
It was first released as the second track on Joel's
Piano ManPiano Man is a rock album by Billy Joel, released in 1973. Piano Man, Joel's second album and his first with Columbia Records, emerged out of legal difficulties with his former label, Family Productions, and became his breakthrough album...
album and was later released on several
greatest hitsA greatest hits album is a music compilation album of successful, previously released songs by a particular artist or band...
collections, including
The Essential Billy JoelThe Essential Billy Joel is a Sony music compilation of songs by American singer/songwriter Billy Joel. It was released on October 2, 2001, and has been certified Double Platinum by the RIAA...
.
When originally issued as a single, the song was deemed too long by record executives (5 minutes and 38 seconds), so two verses were cut in half and spliced together for the release as a 45, clocking in at 4 minutes and 33 seconds. A promo 45 had an even shorter edit, clocking in around 3 minutes. These single edits were also remixed - bringing out a lot of the instrumentation like acoustic guitars and harmonicas, and in fact, sounding reminiscent of the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band's "Mr. Bojangles". Later, Billy Joel's song "
The Entertainer"The Entertainer" is a single by singer Billy Joel released as the only single from his 1974 album Streetlife Serenade. The song peaked at #34 on the US charts, a Top 40 hit for Joel that year...
" refers to the editing of the "Piano Man" single by commenting, "It was a beautiful song, but it ran too long / If you're gonna have a hit, you gotta make it fit / So they cut it down to 3:05." The single mix (4:33) has only appeared on one CD to date: the European release "Piano Man: Very Best of Billy Joel".
Composition
It is in the key of C Major and has a fast 3/4
time signatureThe time signature is a notational convention used in Western musical notation to specify how many beats are in each measure and which note value constitutes one beat....
. It begins with a jazzy piano solo moving into its famous piano/harmonica intro. The verses and subsequently the chorus feature a walking bassline in C ending with a D - G
turnaroundIn jazz, a turnaround is a passage at the end of a section which leads to the next section. This next section is most often the repetition of the previous section or the entire piece or song...
. The song follows the form: Intro, verse, verse (sung an octave higher), prechorus, chorus, instrumental fill. Instrumentally, Joel's 1973 version features piano,
harmonicaThe harmonica, also called harp, French harp, blues harp, and mouth organ, is a free reed wind instrument used primarily in blues and American folk music, jazz, country, and rock and roll. It is played by blowing air into it or drawing air out by placing lips over individual holes or multiple holes...
, bass,
accordionThe accordion is a box-shaped musical instrument of the bellows-driven free-reed aerophone family, sometimes referred to as a squeezebox. A person who plays the accordion is called an accordionist....
,
mandolinA mandolin is a musical instrument in the lute family . It descends from the mandore, a soprano member of the lute family. The mandolin soundboard comes in many shapes—but generally round or teardrop-shaped, sometimes with scrolls or other projections. A mandolin may have f-holes, or a single...
, drums and vocals.
Joel acknowledged on
Inside the Actors StudioInside the Actors Studio is a series on the Bravo cable television channel, hosted by James Lipton. It is produced and directed by Jeff Wurtz; the executive producer is James Lipton. The program, which premiered in 1994, is distributed internationally by CABLEready and is broadcast in 125 countries...
in 1999 that each of the characters in the song is based on a real person, either a friend of his or another stranger at the bar. For instance, Joel claimed that "the waitress practicing politics" was actually his first wife, Elizabeth Weber. Joel also criticized the fact that the verses and the chorus of the song both use the same melody except that the chorus is an octave higher than the verses so Joel opined that this repeated melody line "doesn't go anywhere [musically]." However, he did acknowledge that the song's melody is a good "sing-along melody" and that the song "tells a good story". Although this melody line is repetitive, it should still be noted that Joel also included minor harmonic variation and a different melody in the song's bridge section.
Popularity
When released in 1973, the single fell considerably short of the top 10 (Billboard #25) and at the time was only a moderate hit, not played often on the radio during the next 3 or 4 years. However, after the 1977 release of Joel's album "The Stranger" and Joel's quick, subsequent rise to superstardom, the song would soon become one of his most well-known and loved songs, a big radio hit, and is considered Joel's
signature songA signature song is the one song that a popular and well-established singer or band is most closely identified with or best known for, even if they have had success with a variety of songs...
, partially due to its title. Today it remains popular, and ranks as Joel's #1 song on the iTunes Music Store . The song is so well-known that during Joel's concerts, he usually lets the audience sing the chorus. In concert, Joel often performs "Piano Man" as a finale.
During the first Face to Face tour featuring
Elton JohnSir Elton Hercules John, CBE, Hon DMus is an English rock singer-songwriter, composer, pianist and occasional actor...
and Joel, ads promoted the event as "Rocket Man meets Piano Man".
"Piano Man" was ranked #421 in the
2004 list of Rolling Stones 500 Greatest Songs of All Time"The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time" was the cover story of a special issue of Rolling Stone, issue number 963, published December 9, 2004, a year after the magazine published its list of "The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time"....
.
"Piano Man" is now available as a downloadable track for the video game
Rock Band 3Rock Band 3 is a music video game, developed by Harmonix Music Systems. The game was initially published and distributed by MTV Games and Electronic Arts, respectively, with Mad Catz taking over both roles a year later. It is the third main game in the Rock Band series...
.
Chart positions
| Chart (1973-1974) |
Peak
position |
| Australian Singles Chart |
20 |
| Canadian Singles Chart The Canadian Singles Chart is currently compiled by the U.S.-based music sales tracking company, Nielsen SoundScan . The chart is compiled every Wednesday, and is published by Jam! Canoe on Thursdays....
|
10 |
| U.S. Billboard Hot 100 The Billboard Hot 100 is the United States music industry standard singles popularity chart issued weekly by Billboard magazine. Chart rankings are based on radio play and sales; the tracking-week for sales begins on Monday and ends on Sunday, while the radio play tracking-week runs from Wednesday...
|
25 |
| U.S. Billboard Hot Adult Contemporary Tracks The Adult Contemporary chart is a weekly chart published in Billboard magazine that lists the most popular songs on adult contemporary and "lite-pop" radio stations in the United States...
|
4 |
External links
/ ⒞1985 Sony BMG channel