The song Billy Joel used to call out his most famous track: “I was shocked and embarrassed”
It’s natural for artists to become resentful of their biggest song, even if that song is responsible for making them wealthy beyond their wildest dreams. Just ask Billy Joel.
These hit songs follow artists everywhere they go, and it’s almost an unwritten contractual stipulation that they play the track at each show, unless they want to risk mutiny in the crowd. It’s no longer their song; instead, it belongs to the audience.
Although Joel has an abundance of beloved tracks in his arsenal, there’s one that is particularly synonymous with his career and earned him the nickname ‘Piano Man’. It’s a song that he’s performed more than any other in concert, and was also his first hit, putting him on the trajectory to greatness.
During an interview with Metro, Joel once explained the story behind the song, “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.”
In the same conversation, the New Yorker detailed how he’s become somewhat resentful of ‘Piano Man’, claiming to “have no idea why that song became so popular” and disregarded it as a “karaoke favourite”.
“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.”
Billy Joel
This wasn’t the first time that Joel had been disparaging towards the creation. A year after ‘Piano Man’ gained traction on airwaves across the land, Joel released ‘The Entertainer’ and let his feelings be known to his fans.
He sings on the 1974 effort, “I am the entertainer, I come to do my show, You’ve heard my latest record, It’s been on the radio, Ah, it took me years to write it, They were the best years of my life, 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”.
Notably, the radio edit of ‘Piano Man’ has a running time of three minutes and five seconds, which is what Joel is referring to on the final line.
It’s rare for artists’ favourite songs to also be their most popular. It’s out of their hands which ones will connect with the people, and more often than not, the tracks that mean the most on a personal level are destined to be buried as album tracks that only the most loyal fans truly appreciate.
While ‘Piano Man’ might not top Joel’s own list of favourites from his back catalogue, it’s the one that changed everything. Before this tune came along, he’d already had one swing at the big time with his debut, Cold Spring Harbour, which sank without a trace. If album number two had gone the same way, it could well have been curtains for his pop career.
