A Thousand Miles from Kansas

One Album at a Time — Billy Joel: Piano Man (1973)

As I maneuvered my way home through the crowded streets of Yokosuka, Billy Joel’s “Piano Man” wafted through my car speakers. Not a big surprise as I was listening to the Billy Joel channel via my phone app. But what did surprise me was the song itself. I’ve listened to this song a million times over my life, but tonight I actually “heard” the song for the first time. It was a live version from one of Joel’s final Madison Square Garden shows and the song reached down into my depths and gut punched me! I was so moved that as soon as I got home I  cued up the album and played it again. Several times. And I was right, I think I now understand what Joel was trying to tell us. 

“Piano Man” first graced my turntable around 1980 or 1981. It is my favorite on the album and  in Joel’s catalog. I loved this song the first time I heard it and have ever since. Yet, I really only understood it the other day on my drive home. I was filled with emotions. Loneliness. Sadness. Dreams. Unfulfilled dreams. Satisfaction. Happiness.

The interior of the car “sounded like a carnival”, yet I did not see myself as the piano man with a jar full of bread and people wondering out loud “Man what are you doing here?” like I used to do many years ago. No, this time I was the one asking the piano man to “play a memory that is sad, sweet and that I knew when I wore a younger man’s clothes” so that I could maybe “forget about life for a while”. Natsukashi flashed and flooded my brain. I am not very good at living in the present and often prefer memories of the past, only to focus on what could be, which often leads to that “drink called loneliness, which is better than drinking alone”. Is this a lamentation of Hughe’s “Dream Deferred” or an exercise in Frost’s “The Road Not Taken”? For me it is a combination of both. And once again there is “someplace that I’d rather be”. 

© 2025 Gregory Vessar. A Thousand Miles from Kansas. All Rights Reserved.

In 1973:

Billy Joel released his second album Piano Man in 1973. The title track, “Piano Man”, was a  hit, reaching #25 on the Billboard pop single chart and #4 on the Adult Contemporary chart.  Two other tracks that were minor successes were “The Ballad of Billy the Kid” and “Captain Jack”. The album was released during a time of war and change in the United States. Dark Side of the Moon was released by Pink Floyd, Bruce Lee died, tennis star Billie Jean King defeated Bobby Riggs, The World Trade Center opened, Skylab space station was sent into orbit, and Miami defeated Washington in the Super Bowl (the only undefeated season for a NFL team). In political news, The U. S. was dealing with the Watergate scandal, Roe v. Wade affirmed the right to abortion, and the Vietnam War officially ended.