Picking only five Billy Joel songs from the 1970s isn’t easy. It’s tempting to just tell you to go put on The Stranger and let it play all the way through. But it’s important to highlight a couple of songs leading to Joel’s masterpiece, and how leaving New York was a necessary move. It led to his breakthrough single, a Big Apple standard, and eventually, the reason he made history with a 10-year residency at Madison Square Garden. Let’s begin with an epic.
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“Scenes From An Italian Restaurant”
Billy Joel’s soft rock opera appears on The Stranger, which found the piano man returning to New York after several years in Los Angeles. Columbia Records thought about giving up on him, as his previous album, Turnstiles, had failed to achieve the commercial success of Piano Man. But Joel returned to his hometown and recorded a masterpiece. A portrait of New York City featuring this seven-plus-minute, multi-movement gem.
“New York State Of Mind”
Turnstilespeaked at No. 122 on the Billboard 200, and its lack of sales led to Columbia’s above-mentioned doubts about Billy Joel’s future with the label. But Turnstiles also contains the now-standard “New York State Of Mind”. Though Joel wrote the song after a Greyhound ride on the Hudson Line, he was only visiting, as he was living in Los Angeles at the time. Though New York City suffered through a crime wave and an economic recession in the 1970s, Joel only saw his home, the people, and the places he missed.
“Movin’ Out (Anthony’s Song)”
George Martin was Billy Joel’s first choice to guide The Stranger, but The Beatles’ producer wanted him to use studio musicians instead of his touring band. Joel disagreed and chose his band and producer Phil Ramone, who took advantage of the musicians’ live energy. Listening to the opening track, “Movin’ Out (Anthony’s Song)”, you understand why Joel’s band was a deal breaker.
It sounds like a character sketch Paul McCartney might have written. Even without Martin, you can hear The Beatles’ influence, but the band powers Joel’s middle-class tale with anxious energy as Anthony thinks back-breaking work for class mobility isn’t worth the trade.
“Vienna”
While Billy Joel visited his father in Vienna, he noticed an elderly woman sweeping the street. He thought about the purpose of growing old. Of not cramming an entire lifetime into his youth. “You don’t have to squeeze your whole life into your 20s and 30s,” Joel said, “trying to achieve that American dream.” It wasn’t a single, yet it remains one of Joel’s most beloved tunes on a giant of an album alongside “Just The Way You Are” and “Only The Good Die Young”.
“Piano Man”
Calling Billy Joel’s first hit a defining song is about as literal as one can get. “Piano Man” fictionalized Joel’s experience as a lounge musician, a job he took to pay the bills while transitioning from his former label, Family Productions, to Columbia Records. His lounge gig at the Executive Room in Los Angeles introduced us to John at the bar, Paul, a real estate novelist, and Davy from the Navy.
But the most devastating line in “Piano Man” describes the stoned businessmen who are “sharing a drink they call loneliness / But it’s better than drinking alone.” Imagine stumbling into a dark lounge bar and watching a guy called “Bill Martin” sing songs to half-drunk, semi-focused patrons. When they stuffed tips into his jar, some asked, “Man, what are you doing here?”
But Joel doesn’t get to “Piano Man” without the experience. He doesn’t get to “New York State Of Mind” without leaving the city. And he doesn’t get to The Stranger without either.
Photo by Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images
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