I want to tell a little story. In 1972, I got my very first bartending job at the Executive Room Lounge on Wilshire Blvd ( it's no longer there).
I wasn't even being paid, I was a punk kid of 21 years, and the bartender took a liking to me, and decided not to use against me that a was a 'bartending school graduate' and allow me to work behind the bar with him in order to learn the trade, so I could go out later and claim I had 'experience'. I thanked him for this as it did eventually lead to my first real job as a bartender, which was a trade I plied throughout the 70s in my younger years.

Now then, the bartender told me a story, that 3 months prior, the piano guy, named 'Billy Martin" had just gotten a record contract. I thought nothing of it, and I didn't see anyone of that name being famous at all, so I figured the guy probably was given a shot and flopped.

Fast forward to the year 1981, I was watching a popular morning show in L.A. called "Two On The Town" which about this man and woman couple who would go about town and interview various vendors with interesting stories to tell. So, I turn on the and I see the host and hostess ( I forgot their names) standing in front of the lounge I worked at, "The Executive Room", where they said this was where Billy Joel was working when he got the recording contract, then I put it together, THAT was the guy the bar manager was talking about! He was just using a stage name, "Billy Martin" at the lounge. I had just missed him by a couple of months.

Now then, according to a web page devoted to this anecdote, https://www.popspotsnyc.com/billy_joel_piano_man/ Billy Joel wrote the song "The Piano Man" at that bar.


Anyway, I have always loved this song, it touches us in so many ways as there are so many characters in the song we can relate to.

My question is this: What do you think is the basic meaning of this song?

To me, it means that we are really, when the rubber hits the road, despite all of our beliefs about the universe, that we are really all lost souls.


It's a dark song.

I've performed solo in lounges myself, and that's the kind of feeling I got from looking out at the crowd. I hope we are not all lost, that providence has something good in store for us, I can really relate to the song.

Also, that he was so good, getting a recording contract, would explain the line in the song where a customer tells him "What are you doing here?". I wouldn't doubt that that actually happened to him.


Anyway, what does the song mean to you?