Piano Man – Memphis Flyer

Greg Cravens

About Joey Hack’s post, “Questions Raised by Billy Joel’s ‘Piano Man'” …

The answer to these questions, and many more like them, is that in 1974, Prozac had only just been invented. It wasn’t until years later that it went into wide circulation.

OakTree

He should be wearing a piano key necktie in that photo. And why is Billy Joel brandishing a Telecaster, anyway?

Packrat

I love that moment when he hits that soaring final chorus in “Piano Man,” and dozens of catheters come flying onto the stage.

Mark

Who cares about all the damn metaphors in “Piano Man”? I understood what he was saying. I also remember when Billy and his small group played to a packed house at the old Lafayette’s Music Room at Overton Square in the early 1970s. I listened to it live on FM-100. Billy loved Memphis, and Memphis loved Billy. He became a superstar almost overnight after that show.

Paul Scates

About Jackson Baker’s Politics column, “Another City/Suburban Battle” …

Someone correct me if I’m wrong, but did the city not determine that South Cordova was going to lose money for the city immediately after annexing it? I’ve been saying for a while that the annexation strategy is and has been failing.

If you were to do a postmortem on the annexations, I believe you’d find that even the ones that at first were profitable for the city likely are no longer profitable.

The big problem the city has is that the minute it annexes an area, property values in the area drop. So any business case the city did based on the potential tax revenue of the annexed area was wrong if they didn’t assume that the pool of funds would be reduced after annexation. Knowing how most governments operate, I doubt that kind of analysis was ever done on any of the annexations.

GroveReb84

Mark Luttrell: 26%; George Flinn: 11%; Brian Kelsey: 9%; David Kustoff: 8%; Tom Leatherwood: 7%; Steve Basar: 1%; Undecided: 38%.

Given the choice of the above, it’s easy to see why Undecided is winning.

About Bruce VanWyngarden’s column, “Medium Cool” …

Maybe the Flyer is too “cool” to educate themselves on Trump’s policies, but you can read them here if you can find time between comparing IPA’s: donaldjtrump.com/positions.

Clyde

Dubya was cool to a certain segment of the country — largely the same segment that loves Trump, and for many of the same reasons. The difference is that many of the people who voted for Dubya but weren’t fond of his cool trusted that his handlers would actually run the country for him. They don’t have the same trust with Trump. They know he’ll surround himself with yes-men and do whatever he damn well pleases, and that’s what scares them.

Hillary Clinton’s cool is 10th-grade math teacher cool — the teacher everybody hates after the first day of class, but toward the end of the year decide she’s all right, and by the time they graduate, remember her quite fondly as one of the best teachers they ever had.

Jeff

Bruce, you’ve gone too far. How dare you insult the noble brotherhood of “Siding Salesmen.”

I prefer to think of Trump as more like the guy who owns a bunch of sleazy and failed businesses and has the audacity to show up uninvited to the party, referring to himself as a “Business Genius, and VERY, very rich to boot.”

Oh … Wait a minute. Never mind.

So maybe we can just call him what he is: the turd in the punch bowl of the 2016 election year. And that’s not cool.

John Shouse

I dunno, I have sat in a bar with John Kerry and voted for him anyway.

CL Mullins

What is Billy Joel pointing at?

Billy Joel is making a rare Memphis appearance next week. And, as Memphis prepares for the wave of Billymania sure to sweep through the ranks of parents, grandparents, and great-grandparents who are really into him, we take time to reflect on Joel’s signature song, Piano Man. The iconic tune is filled with enigmas and mysteries. And perhaps riddles. The point is, we have the questions. Perhaps you have the answers.

1. How does one make love to a tonic and gin? Or any other beverage?

2. Who has ever used the phrase “I knew it complete.”

3. When the old man says he knew the song when he wore a younger man’s clothes, does he simply mean he knew it when he was younger, or did he murder some guy, steal his clothes, and sing a sad and sweet song? Why does the old man talk in this affected manner?

4.Is John a good bartender? He doles out free drinks, which can’t be good for business, right?

5. Is John a good actor? Could he, indeed, be a movie star? Has he tried acting? Or does he just think that, on the strength of his ability to quickly light cigarettes and tell jokes he could be a movie star? Even if he can’t get out of that place (for whatever reason, perhaps this is an indictment of the nation’s refusal to adopt a country-wide rail system), he could try acting at some level, don’t you think? Maybe take a class.

6. What kind of politics is the waitress practicing? Is she Democrat, Republican, Libertarian, or perhaps Tea Party? Should she be getting political in a bar? It seems a dangerous tactic as she shouldn’t want to offend a potential tipper.

7. Why are the businessmen getting stoned in the bar? Drunk, sure. But stoned? This seems legally ill advised, unless the bar is in Amsterdam. Or Colorado.

Questions Raised By Billy Joel’s ‘Piano Man’

8. Who is sharing a drink called loneliness. Is it just the businessmen? Or is the waitress also somehow involved? Is that wise? And is it actually better than drinking alone? Depends on the other businessmen, I suppose.

9. What the hell is a real estate novelist? Does real estate novelling actually eat up so much time that you can’t find a wife? I think Paul just didn’t really want one and uses that as an excuse.

10. Which would explain why he’s talking to Davy, who conveniently for rhyming purposes, is in the Navy.

11. I understand why the microphone smells like a beer. As we’ve established, John gives Bill free beers, so it’s no wonder that the mic smells of free beer. But how does a piano sound like a carnival? Is he just playing that clown song over and over again? You know the one. They always play it at circuses. If that’s the case, I do not understand why the bar retains Bill. Unless it is a clown bar. Which would be awesome, but unlikely, as real estate novelists hate clowns.

12. Is it appropriate to tip musicians with bread? Maybe it is in a clown bar.

13. When the crowd asks Bill “Man, what are you doing here?” is it because he keeps playing that carnival song, and is not actually hired by the bar? If so, John really shouldn’t give him free drinks.

Joey Hack is a member of the Wiseguys Improv troupe and a kind of regular contributor to Fly on the Wall.