Billy Joel: Piano Man Meaning

Song Released: 1973

Piano Man Lyrics

It's nine o'clock on a Saturday
The Regular crowd shuffles in
There's an old man sitting next to me
Makin' love to his tonic and gin

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...

1. anonymous

   • 1
   • 2
   • 3
   • 4
   • 5

   click a star to vote

   Apr 8th 2011 !⃝

   Everything in this song was written just as an overall general description of every day city life and the struggles that accompany that for each person. You can all stop reading way too much crap into your interpretations of this song. He didn't try to hide any secret meanings or inferences into this song. To Billy, the words are secondary to the music and obviously with the waitress line he didn't mean anything more than he meant for his description of any other character in the bar. So stop taking offense to everything he says or "really means." You're all wasting your time. Just stop and enjoy the music and realize that he is simply trying to have a great, memorable song that everyone can relate to in one way or another. Considering that everyone loves and knows all the words to this song I would say he was successful.Ok? So cool it.
2. anonymous

   • 1
   • 2
   • 3
   • 4
   • 5

   click a star to vote

   Jan 21st 2011 !⃝

   Having listened to this song for more than thirty years you take the words for granted. But as an adult I came to the same conclusion as someone else that Davy and Paul are two gay men looking for a possible hook up. Think about the time when it was written, coming out of the closet was a difficult thing to do. The Navy stereotypically was a haven for gay men. And some poor mother, who wanted grandchildren, would tell her friends, "My son is so busy he doesn't have time for a wife." I am not insinuating that all Navy sailors are gay so please don't rip me on that.
3. anonymous

   • 1
   • 2
   • 3
   • 4
   • 5

   click a star to vote

   Sep 11th 2009 !⃝

   Davy and Paul are homosexuals
   Paul, "Never had time for a wife.."
   Davy, "Stuck in the navy.."

   This interpretation has been marked as poor. view anyway
4. anonymous

   • 1
   • 2
   • 3
   • 4
   • 5

   click a star to vote

   Jul 24th 2009 !⃝

   I Think its about everyone wishing for a different future but they dont no how good their life's really are. He loves playing at this bar and feels comfortable he could have a better future but he'd rather continue with cheering these people up. Its about trusting fate where you end up is the best posistion that you couldve ended up. Billy seems 2 be saying that they are getting a break from their lives and chating about their dreams that they will never achieve. Its about dreaming and its about being happy about where u are and what u have achieved in life so far
5. McLovin

   • 1
   • 2
   • 3
   • 4
   • 5

   click a star to vote

   Dec 30th 2008 !⃝

   You want to know what it's about??? See generally Arthur Miller, Death of a Salesman (1st Ed. 1949).
6. anonymous

   • 1
   • 2
   • 3
   • 4
   • 5

   click a star to vote

   Sep 15th 2008 !⃝

   Joel has explained numerous times that the "waitress practicing politics" is his first wife and eventual manager Elizabeth, who worked with him in that piano bar. She was a smart cookie; earned a master's degree in business at UCLA. This seems to be a hat-tip to her skills as a skilled negotiator working for tips.
7. Franky_Valley

   • 1
   • 2
   • 3
   • 4
   • 5

   click a star to vote

   May 27th 2008 !⃝

   I once heared that this song is all about protest and drugs.
   
   Supposedly the "Piano man" is supplying that what the "customers" of the bar want
   
   NO clue if this is what it is, but I thought it was an interesting explanation

   This interpretation has been marked as poor. view anyway
8. anonymous

   • 1
   • 2
   • 3
   • 4
   • 5

   click a star to vote

   Mar 24th 2008 !⃝

   "The Waitress Is practiceing Politics,
   As the buisnessmen slowly get stoned"
   
   This could mean 1 of 2 things:
   
   1: She is an aspiring politicion who is simply shooting the breeze with the buisness men about the latest politics talk, and they don't really care what she has to say. All they care about he checking her out and whatnot.
   
   2: She is simply shooting the breeze with the buisnessmen because they are her custimers. In order to seem nice and friendly (so she can get a better tip as someone else said before) she tells them everything they want to hear (just as a politicition may or may not sometimes do), while they sit and get drunk.
9. anonymous

   • 1
   • 2
   • 3
   • 4
   • 5

   click a star to vote

   Dec 22nd 2007 !⃝

   I suppose it probably is a real story, however, saying the "waitress is practicing politics" is not an insult. It's kinda like saying they're all not doing that well at the moment, but they're trying. The waitress is trying to get somewhere higher and more important than being just a waitress. Obviously, she wants to be involved with politics.
10. anonymous

    • 1
    • 2
    • 3
    • 4
    • 5

    click a star to vote

    Nov 1st 2007 !⃝

    His explanation on this is on Disc 4 of his greatest hit box collection.
    
    Billy was trying to get out of a record contract deal and couldn't record. In the meantime he played at a local piano bar. "they sit at the bar and put bread in my jar" That's how he was living, off the tips from the gig.
    
    The people he mentioned are all people he knew at the bar, John the bartendar, a guy who worked in real estate was always working on a novel "Paul is a real estate novelist". Davy who was a Navy guy. The waitress, I can't remember, but I think she was a student, it's been a while since I listened to the explination.
    
    It's not really a metaphor or anything...it's just a story. Go buy the greatest hits box collection.
11. Unforgivin

    • 1
    • 2
    • 3
    • 4
    • 5

    click a star to vote

    Oct 31st 2007 !⃝

    This song, by all accounts, is about his experience as a piano player in a bar. All the occupants in the bar yearn for a happier time but are each stuck in their own personal ruts, the old man yearns for his youth, John to be a movie star, the businessmen want companionship, Paul works to hard trying to be successful while the waitress, much like a politician, tries to keep everyone happy at the same time while still getting something for herself (this is not an insult to waitresses, its commentary on how hard their jobs are and how little credit they get.) The difference in this bar is that Billy Joel is the pianist. He had already released a single before he played here. Unlike the others, he will succeed in escaping this rut and his best times are ahead of him. But he owes his success to these very people, their adoration and their patronage, as shown in the line "and they sit at the bar and put bread in my jar and say:man what are you doing here?" The song is a reflection on his experience as a bar pianist, and an expression of gratitude to his fans and those who helped him along the way, recognizing that he had a special talent that shouldn't be wasted but shared with the world.
12. anonymous

    • 1
    • 2
    • 3
    • 4
    • 5

    click a star to vote

    Aug 4th 2007 !⃝

    I think that there are two lines that say it all for this song
    "And they sit at the bar and put bread in my jar
    And say man, what are you doin' here?"
    I think this is why Billy Joel went for the big time, he saw all these people regretting thier lives, and he decided what the heck, why AM I sitting here, I should go for it, and he did.
13. anonymous

    • 1
    • 2
    • 3
    • 4
    • 5

    click a star to vote

    Aug 1st 2007 !⃝

    Why does the waitress part have to such an elaborate (and in my mind) poorly implied metaphor?
    
    Why can't it just mean she wanted to be a politician?
14. anonymous

    • 1
    • 2
    • 3
    • 4
    • 5

    click a star to vote

    Jun 15th 2007 !⃝

    "And the waitress is practicing politics, as the business men slowly get stoned"
    
    I believe that this line is the waitress working hard for her tips and "practicing politics" if you will....meaning she is maybe either flirting with the businessmen or trying to get them interested, strictly just to increase her tip. She is promoting herself, trying to get their "vote" in form of a tip! And like most any politician, it's all a front, far from reality and how it really is.
    
    Go to your local bar a few times, this is the real deal at many places, also strip clubs.
15. anonymous

    • 1
    • 2
    • 3
    • 4
    • 5

    click a star to vote

    May 22nd 2007 !⃝

    Well yeah the last line, I think is a statement.
    
    The song shows us witness several examples of your "average joe" from all ages and sexes that you might find commonly in a bar and shows how life's not all its cracked up to be, and the disappointments they all face.
    
    Anyway I'm not getting into the rest of the song, but the last line I think is meant to show that while Billy (or me or you through Billy), have sat there on our/his "high horse" (or piano) happily playing the piano and watching over these unfortunate people, at the end of the day he is also in the same bar as them.
    
    This perhaps shows that most of us are in the same boat of loneliness/disappointments but through various means, and it is in Billy's case, perhaps a wake up call to pick himself up.

Latest Articles

• 
  A new era for Millennial favorite, Linkin Park
• 
  Anime to watch for the soundtracks… and other reasons you’re undateable
• 
  Dolly, we need you
• 
  The Stranger Things Effect: How new media is drawing Gen Z and Alpha's attention to aging media
• 
  The most underrated soundtrack of the early 2000s
• 
  Buy the Soundtrack, Skip the Movie: Brainscan (1994)