Billy Joel

I was in the car one night while Billy Joel was playing on the radio and part way through the second verse I realized that the song evoked very similar emotions as many of the short stories we have read this semester. For anyone who has not heard his popular “Piano Man,” go listen to it. Not only will you understand this blog post better, but you will also get to enjoy the work of a very talented musician. I use this piece to introduce my point because it so perfectly captures the nostalgia and loneliness that can be seen in so many of the stories we have read this semester.

The song itself is about Billy Joel himself and his typical night performing at a bar. It starts, “It’s nine o’clock on a Saturday/The regular crowd shuffles in”. While most people would be out and about on a Saturday night, this group of people frequents this bar, reflecting the monotonous routine of life that is portrayed in Antrim’s “Another Manhattan,” as the characters go through the motions of life within their relationships without emotion or investment. The next line, “ There’s an old man sitting next to me/Making love to his tonic and gin,” introduces the theme of loneliness that keep resurfacing throughout the song as characters appear. The fact that the man is “making love” to his drink implies that he does not have a romantic partner and is alone at the bar. He is therefore using alcohol as his only company. Similarly, “The Arms and Legs of The Lake” opens with the image of a war vet sitting alone in a bar as the bartender continuously gives him free drinks. He is lost in thought, in his own world, just as each individual introduced in the song seems to be in their own world despite being in the same place.

The song continues with the lyrics:

He says, ‘Son, can you play me a memory

I’m not really sure how it goes

But it’s sad and it’s sweet and I knew it complete

When I wore a younger man’s clothes.

This verse refers to the long ago memories and a younger version of the man who he no longer identifies with. In asking Billy to play him a memory, he is hoping to relive the nostalgic experiences of his younger self. Likewise, in multiple of the stories we have read, the characters seems to long for youthfulness. In “A Perfect Day for Bananafish,” Seymour only ever seems comfortable with the young child, Sybil. By playing with her, he can relate to the innocence of childhood and convey a dark story through child’s play. A similar theme can also be seen in “Uncle Wiggily in Connecticut” through the way that Eloise longs for Walt. Because they were both young, almost still kids before the war, her memories with him are locked in the time of their youth. Because of this, she is constantly longing to feel the way she did in her youth when she was with Walt.

The following verse starts by introducing Billy’s friend, John. The lyrics say, “And he’s quick with a joke or to light up your smoke/But there’s someplace that he’d rather be”. These lines portray a longing to be something more than who they have become. Like Tim O’Brien reflecting back on who the war has made him, John wishes that he could get out of the framework of his current life. The next character Billy presents is Davy, who has similar sentiments about his position in life . The lyrics say, “And he’s talkin’ with Davy, who’s still in the Navy/And probably will be for life”. Davy will never be able to leave the Navy because even if he does survive the war, it is a part of him that will never go away, leaving him stuck in the mindset forever. Similarly, many of the war vets presented in the stories struggle with leaving the war behind when they come home. This was especially prevalent in O’Brien’s “Speaking of Courage” as Norman Bowker circled the lake, his thoughts revolving around the trauma he experienced during the war.

The final verse of the song is:

And they sit at the bar and put bread in my jar

And say, “Man, what are you doin’ here?”

This once again reflects the common theme in these stories of characters being stuck where they don’t belong. People ask “what are you doin’ here?” because he is too talented to be playing in a bar on a Saturday night. Yet despite not belonging, he cannot get out because, like all the other people he has introduced throughout the song, he is stuck in the confines of his own life. However, this makes him just another one of the many people at the bar, lonely and wistfully imagining being somewhere else. These sentiments appear in nearly all of the individual short stories as well as in O’Brien’s collection and remain a constant and unforgettable theme. In this way, Billy Joel’s “Piano Man” seems to be the perfect soundtrack to the short stories we have read this semester.