Billy Joel's Piano Man Worked at a Gay Bar....

Maybe Billy Joel went thru a gay stage when younger.

I would wear a younger man's clothes,

once in a while.

Holy crap. This never occurred to me, but it makes perfect sense.

In shocking turn of events, men who hang out in piano bars turn out to be gay! Investigation at 11 only on WNYW.

… and the drag queen took to the stage and she made a man out of me/ la ti de da..

Ha ha, I won’t be able to un-hear this interpretation now.

My dead shithead dad loved this song, when he was alive.

I like Billy Joel but I've always hated his early hit "Piano Man". It grates on my nerves!

As a kid, I never understood why people would put bread in his jar.

Why would the bar have a waitress? Unless she was in drag and Billy couldn't tell she was a he.

The Townhouse.

Christie Brinkley tells her version of the legendary story of the night she met Billy. Talk about stars coalescing.

I've heard customers at piano bars pay the piano player not to play Piano Man when someone requests it, usually a drunk frau tourist thinking that she's being woke and trendy and cool by going to a gay bar.

He worked as the piano bar player at The Executive Room on Wilshire Blvd in the early 70s. There was a piano bar scene in LA back then with a couple of clubs in the mid-Wilshire area. I don't recall them being noticeably gay but as with many bars, they were pick-up places. They were watering holes for people that fancied themselves as good singers. Some were, most were just average.

Are piano bars still a thing?

Eldergays will remember "All the Sad Young Men."

[quote]He says: "Son can you play me a memory?"

I always thought it was “son can you play me a melody?”

Is that why they're always asking him "Man, what are you doing here?"

Was it on the west coast that Billy Joel worked in piano bars? Interesting.

Like Billy, I'm from Long Island and decades ago when I heard "Piano Man" I knew a number of bars that he describes in the song. Smoky places with small tables that did require a waitress or two on the floor and yes, a piano that was sometimes occupied. These were not gay bars, they were just local places in Nassau County, often in a building that ran parallel to the Long Island Rail Road.

I never got a gay vibe from the song at all.

Boy, if there's one song I cannot abide...it's "Piano Man."

Nah. How could the narrator not know?

I've heard at least three versions of the story at r11 from Billy, Christie and Elle. The only version I haven't heard is Whitney's.

Billy Joel….barf.

Billy Joel and I attended the same elementary school (he was there before me but we're from the same town) in Hicksville, Lawng Eyelin, NY. Fork Lane Elementary. I spoke to him in 1976 when he was doing a radio interview in Seattle. I just called the station during a commercial break. He was very cool.

Why are short, swarthy Jewish men obsessed with tall, blonde shiksas?

Then wouldn't it have been, "Honey, what are you doin' here?"?

Or even, "Mary, what are you doin' here?"

Didn’t Ellen Burstyn’s character work in a piano bar in Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore?

He doesn’t actually say the waitress works in the bar. He goes into generalities with that line, describing types of lonely people: waitress, businessman.

The waitresh ish practishing politicsh while the bushineshman shlowly getsh shtoned...

Did the straights have piano bars in the ‘70s? I was but a child then, and not clued in.

[quote] I like Billy Joel but I've always hated his early hit "Piano Man". It grates on my nerves!

It's actually one of the few songs of his I like. I'm sure it's terribly overplayed, though.

A different song, but years and years ago my wife and I were driving on the North Shore and she was like “oh this is the miracle mile” and suddenly one of his songs made a whole lot more sense.

I hate forced rhymes like “when I wore a younger man’s clothes.”

So lazy.

R29 Those places were a mash-up of everything. The customers had a common bond, they all wanted to sing in public because they thought they were Sinatra, Streisand, or every other singer of the day.

R31 The Miracle Mile is also in Los Angeles and was where this particular bar was that BJ played at. I lived nearby in what is currently the LA Korea Town. There were a few piano bars in the area. The one I liked was on 6th St near the old Brown Derby (Wilshire & Alexandria). I forget the name of the place. I went for the food and drinks, not the singing. I knew the bartender Tony who would provide me with endless free drinks. The owner was a trust fund guy that was a total sleazeball. The place was his personal watering hole where he could lock the doors at 2 am and continue to party and drink til dawn.

The downside of sitting there was having to listen to all the lounge lizards sing. The piano bar player was a woman about 45-50ish, looked a little like Julie London and sang pretty well. There were always older men trying to get her attention which never happened. I didn't pay much attention to the pickup scene there. I was very young and the clientele at these piano bars tended to be much older folks, as in 40s up to 70s.