Once again it's A Week and a Day Late Jukebox....
My introduction to this week's featured tune, amazingly enough, was when I bought the album, some months after it was released in 1977, when I was but a wee lad of eighteen. Little did I know back then that some forty-seven years later, the song would be considered his finest....
As with numerous other artists on A Week and a Day Late Jukebox, Billy Joel's career is much too accomplished to be summarized in a mere paragraph. Just to give the briefest of glimpses, Joel has sold over 160 million albums, been elected to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and the Songwriter's Hall of Fame, won six Grammys, and received the Kennedy Center Honors. For his career, Joel has released thirteen studio albums (with four of them reaching #1), and eighty-two singles (with three of those hitting the top spot). Somewhat surprisingly, Joel has not released a studio album of pop tunes (he did release a classical album in 2001) since 1993, though he has released several singles. He continues to tour extensively.
"Scenes from an Italian Restaurant" was released in 1977 on Joel's magnum opus, The Stranger. It was one of the few songs on the album that wasn't released as a single, but years later it was ranked #324 on Rolling Stone's list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All-Time. The album reached #2 on the Billboard 200, and eventually sold over ten million copies.
Fun Fact (at least for me): Billy Joel was the first artist I ever saw in concert, and the tour was in support of the album listed above....
Joel has said that "Scenes from an Italian Restaurant" grew out of snippets of three songs, and that would explain the song's trajectory. It opens with a ballad as two old friends meet up at, of all things, an Italian restaurant. It then segues into a jazzy reverie as the friends catch up on their lives. The song then turns into a rock and roll story as the friends reminisce about a popular couple (which Joel calls "The Ballad of Brenda and Eddie") from when they were younger whose teenage romance became a marriage that eventually ended in divorce. Joel returns to the ballad at the song's close as the friends part. It's easy to see why many (including Joel) think this one is his best song--his juxtaposition of the music with the stories he's weaving is magical and his snappy lyrics bring out the best in his characters. And in the end--as is so often the case--Joels virtuoso performance encompasses the reflective to the rollicking to the testimonial. A gifted performer at the height of his talents.
Lyric Sheet: "Oh, and that's all I heard about Brenda and Eddie/Can't tell you more 'cause I told you already/And here we are waving/Brenda and Eddie goodbye..."
Enjoy:
Republicans = Nazis
Peace,
emaycee
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