01x01 - Part One

[bunniefuu]

When I was young,
I worked on an oyster boat.

I used to look up
at this mansion on the hill

and wonder what it would be like
to live in a house like that.

I used to think, "They're rich b*stards.

They never had to work
a day in their life."

Well, I own that house now.

It's not finished yet.

And neither am I.

Thank you. Good evening to you,
New York City!

The most original thing
I've ever done in my life

is screw up.

But that's not necessarily a bad thing.

I once asked a truly great chef
how he got to be so good.

He said, "It's all in the recovery,

how you correct your mistakes."

I think there's a lot of hard-won wisdom
that comes with that.

Everything I've done and everything
I've lived through,

it somehow found its way into my music.

We're rolling.

Okay, sound three?

There's no rockstars that come

from a place called Hicksville, you know?

One thing led to another
and it became "Billy Joel."

...nice white dress

And a party on your confirmation

I was tired of being stereotyped.

Tired of being pigeonholed.

It was just time
to do something different.

Don't take any sh*t from anybody.

I do not want to live!

Whoa, oh, oh, oh

- Hello.
- Are you the man

- singing "Uptown Girl?"
- That's me.

Sing us a song you're the piano man

Sing us a song...

I think if you lose sight
of where you come from,

you don't know who you are anymore.

...for a melody...

Love can make you write music,

but heartbreak can do the same thing.

It can be a pretty nasty business.

I mean, this is not the Boy Scouts.

This is the music business.

I am the entertainer...

One of the most successful
recording artists of all time.

The one, the great Billy Joel.

Mr. Billy Joel!

- Billy Joel.
- Billy Joel.

Billy Joel!

I've never been comfortable on camera.

When you know you're on camera,
like right now,

there's a little bit
of uptight thing going on.

It's like, I can't escape.

I can't hide behind the piano.

I don't think of myself as a rock star.

I'm a musician,

and I tend to want
to hide within the band.

I'm comfortable with them.

I gained all the weight you lost.

That's where it went.

They know me. I know them.

This is heavier than I remember.

You wanna take it home with you?

And we refer to people who aren't
in our g*ng as civilians.

If you're not in our g*ng,
you're a civilian.

Somebody's got to get a tape or video

of me playing,
how much bullshit I'm playing.

I enjoy working with the musicians.

I enjoy playing music for an audience.

We held the concert out in Brooklyn

To watch the island bridges blow

But to create music
on a quality scale consistently,

you have to be completely dedicated,

to the detriment
of almost everything else.

Two, three, four.

She stood on the tracks

- Somebody has to sing.
- Somebody else-- It overlaps.

And she never...

You have to give up other things.
You give up a certain amount of your life.

Let me see what it sounds like.

- But if you're enjoying it...
- Okay.

...you don't realize
how much life's going by.

I started playing in bands
when I was a kid.

What I wanted to do was
be able to make a living,

not necessarily become a millionaire
or travel the world.

I just wanted to be able to pay the bills.

To me, that was success.

But with my success,
I'm not always comfortable with it.

Sometimes it's alien to me.
This guy, Billy Joel.

I don't know who that is
or what that is.

I'm reminded of it

when I go walk on the streets
and somebody goes,

"Oh, Billy Joel." Oh, right. I'm that guy.

Somehow I did it.
I came up with these songs.

But ever since I was a little kid,
music was the goal.

People think of me as a,
an urban guy from New York City.

I'm not. I'm a guy from
a small town in Long Island.

And back in the day, in the mid '60s,

it seemed like everybody
in my neighborhood was in a band.

First band I was in, we were called

the Lost Souls from Long Island.

The first songs I wrote
were bad Beatles songs.

That was the state of the art at the time.
We were all trying to be The Beatles.

Well, I climb the highest mountain

And I swim the deepest sea...

This was like when I was
in junior high school,

and I was actually making money

by playing the piano
and having a great time.

I said, "Wait a minute,
this is what I'm going to do."

So I've had a head start.

Like, I knew what I wanted to do
since the time I was 14.

How much success did you
have with your first band?

Well, obviously, they're a household
name now, aren't they?

Back in the '60s,

the Long Island rock scene was tremendous.

Now I may drive...

I was in a band called The Hassles,

and we just lost our keyboard player.

And Billy came in with his guys,

and I saw him perform.

Reflections floating

Through this phantom light...

And it was so corny,
it was just ridiculous.

It was the way he was dressed,

and he got down on one knee
and sang a song.

But it was a home run to me.

And I said, look. This guy's good.

And I said to him,

"So look, we'd really like you
to join The Hassles."

...the day you left me

And he goes, "I can't join your band.
These are my brothers.

I love these guys.
I'm not going anywhere."

And I saw I was losing the battle.

So, I said, "Well, look, we'll give you

this Hammond B3 organ
if you join the band.

Any of the big bands on the Island
usually would end up getting a Hammond B3.

I had never gotten to work
on a Hammond B3.

That was my dream organ.

But it was a couple of thousand dollars,
and I just couldn't afford one.

And I said to Billy,
"Well, if you join our band,

I'll give you that Hammond B3 organ.

And he, like, just looks and goes,

"f*ck those guys, I'm in."

None of the guys
in the band had money,

but Billy had no money.

I mean, there was poor,
and then there was Billy Joel poor.

You know, he was lucky if he had
enough money to buy a pack of cigarettes.

I didn't have a car,
so I couldn't drive anywhere.

So I depended on Jon to pick me up
and take me wherever we were going,

when it was time to rehearse
or time to do a gig.

I remember the first time
I met his mom, Roz,

Billy says to her,
"See, that's what I want to look like."

And she looks at me.
I had hair down to here.

And she goes, "Great."

But I thought she was
the best stage mother you could have.

All she did is root for her son.

She knew from the beginning
that he had it.

So we hit it off.
We were like a pig in a blanket.

He was the pig, and I was the blanket.

We did everything together.

I could tell you don't need me

So Jon and I got very close.

And became very friendly
with his wife, Elizabeth.

I was married to Elizabeth Weber.

I was very young when I got married.

He worked in a band,
and I was a student.

I was pregnant.

And I told Jon Small
that we were getting married.

And so, I met Bill
for the first time in 1967.

And he was 17.

He was shy.
He was a little bit on the quiet side.

But even when he was a teenager,
he was a very hard worker,

and he knew that
that's what it would take.

And I saw evidence of that from,
you know, almost the very beginning.

Back then, his whole life was the band.

I was die hard, hardcore musician.

I don't know what you got...

So we had a lead singer,

but Billy could sing
the pants off that guy.

And, eventually,
Billy sang most of the songs

that people came to see us for.

The Hassles were basically a cover band,
a jukebox band.

We played what the hits of the day were.

But we wanted some songs

that could be considered Hassles songs.

We had learned if you're going to be
a successful recording group,

you have to have original material.

You can't just keep doing cover records.
So I just started writing a lot.

"Every Step I Take."
That was the single for The Hassles.

Every step I take every move I make

I'm trying to escape
my life without you

That was the first song
he wrote with The Hassles,

which became a number one hit

on the Long Island stations.

Everything I do...

That was the first time
a single was on the radio.

Everyone in my town knew it.
They all called each other up.

They were driving down the street
with their windows open,

and they'd say, "Turn on the radio!"

Every step I take every move I make

I'm trying to escape
my life without you

And we used to pack all these places.

So we were like
little rock stars back then.

It was funny, you know?
Everybody knew who you were.

The Hassles, I saw them in '67.

What I liked about Billy was

he was an amazing organ player.
A Hammond B3.

He could rock the house with that alone.

And just his voice was incredible.

...A picture of your face before...

The Hassles were signed

to a record label, United Artists.

Made a little noise locally
and when we went as far as New Jersey,

you know, like,
we were on tour in New Jersey.

We went across the bridge. Wow!

...Every move I make

I'm trying to escape
my life without you

You get better when you play

in front of an audience because
they boo you if they don't like you.

Especially on Long Island and New York,
they don't hold back.

So it was our school.
I learned a lot in that band.

This is Billy Joel of The Hassles.

Now we'd like to do
one of our favorite numbers,

and we hope it'll be
one of your favorites.

With all bands,
you always have arguments

about the creative way you're going.

Amongst The Hassles,
only Billy and I were as serious.

Me and Billy, we were in sync
and the other guys weren't.

And then we realized that
we didn't need the other guys.

So we left The Hassles.

Jon and Bill,
they were very serious.

They wanted to advance
their musical career.

And we had this great idea.

Rehearsal space is very expensive,
hard to find.

And so why don't we get a place together?

And then there'd be a place to rehearse.

And that place became the Rock House.

It was a house that was
all made of cobblestones.

And it was Elizabeth, me,
Billy, and my son Sean.

And, at that point,
we had all gotten very close.

And we started to talk about making music.

And our favorite band was Led Zeppelin.

Led Zeppelin's first album came out.
It just pulverized me when I heard this.

It was like hearing
Beethoven's Ninth Symphony

for the first time.

In the days of my youth

I was told what it means to be a man

We liked Led Zeppelin.
We liked all the heavy metal bands.

And now I've reached
that age, I've tried...

And we started writing songs together,

and then we rehearsed it in the basement.

We wanted to be a heavy metal band.

But I'm not a guitar player.
I'm a keyboard player.

So I had to try to figure out

how to wire an organ through amplifiers.

And we rehearsed for hours,

hours playing nonsense.

A lot of distortion, fuzz tone.

But to us, it was great.

And then, that turned into Attila.

Attila the Hun.
We're going to destroy the world

with amplification.

We just wanted to make
as much noise as possible.

Probably one of
the worst bands of all time.

Wonder Woman with your skin so fair

Wonder Woman with your long red hair

Da na da da

You have the velvet touch

We got our first gig.

It was sold out because it was advertised
as "Formerly from The Hassles."

We drove people out of the clubs.

We were so loud and bad.

The only guy good was Billy,
and the only other guy was me.

I didn't know one person
who liked what we were doing.

It was really good.
I know he hates it, but I loved it.

It was just like...

pounding rock, you know.

Wonder Woman stole my heart away

Wonder Woman...

We did a video with Attila,

and we were on the roller
coaster at Coney Island.

But I have no idea why
Attila got signed to Epic Records.

Back in those days,
they were signing everybody.

If you had hair past your collar,
they signed you.

And we got signed.

I don't know what idiot
was responsible for that.

And they set us up a photo session
to do the album cover,

and having meat carcasses
hanging around us.

Full beef hanging behind us.

We were dressed like Huns.

And it was costumes
from the movie "Ben Hur."

Fur and metal bracelets.

I walked into this photoshoot
and I said, oh, no.

It was literally disgusting,
but back then

we laughed at ourselves
more than anything.

It was just so funny, you know.

And it was really a fun time

until it became not a fun time.

Elizabeth was very important to me,

but I think I was not the guy
she hoped I would be.

Jon and I were not a good fit.

We were very young,
and we didn't really know

much of anything,

and I got more and more dissatisfied
with the life I was living.

And then things got complicated.

Bill and I spent a lot of time together.

And so we talked.

You can make me free

You can make me smile

You can make me be

Like a little child
you can melt the ice...

We'd walk up and down the street,
and car rides and dinners.

When you just find someone
you're comfortable with

that can finish your sentences

and know what you're thinking
without saying anything,

sometimes it's a slow build.

You can make me rise

You can make me see so open up my eyes

Don't you know my only real moments

Are the ones I spend with you

We shared a lot of experiences.
I fell in love.

And we went into a relationship.

I kept seeing that Billy
was not the same guy.

Something was the matter.

And Billy one day came up to me,

became a little honest and said to me,

"I'm in love with your wife."

So it was a very devastating thing for me

because these were basically
my two best friends.

I felt very, very guilty about it.

They had a child,
and I always felt like a homewrecker.

He's crying and he's telling me,
"I feel so bad."

He didn't know what to do about it.

How does he break his best friend's heart?

But he said she was so powerful to him

that it was worth it to lose
our friendship for it.

I was just in love with a woman.

And I got punched in the nose,
which I deserved.

You know, Jon was very upset.
I was very upset.

And that was the end of Attila.

That was the end of my relationship
with Jon for a while.

And Elizabeth just took off.

So I left the Rock House.

I drank a lot.

Billy is comatose.
Doesn't eat, doesn't do anything.

And he kept threatening me with,
"Yeah, I'm going to k*ll myself."

I had no place to live.
I was sleeping in laundromats.

And I was depressed, I think,

to the point of almost being psychotic.

So I figured that's it.

I don't want to live anymore.

I've been livin'

For the moment

But I just can't have my way

I was just in a lot of pain.

It was sort of like, why hang out?

Tomorrow is going
to be just like today is,

and today sucks.

...tomorrow is today

So I just thought I'd end it all.

People tell me...

I was a medical assistant,
and Billy came to the office

and he was sitting in the waiting room,
and he was very, very depressed.

He said he can't sleep.
And so, I gave him the pills.

And I said take one or two at night
and you'll be able to sleep.

But Billy decided that he was
going to take all of them.

He was in a coma for days
and days and days.

And I went to see him in the hospital,

and he was laying there white as a sheet.

I don't have to see tomorrow

'Cause I...

I felt that I k*lled him.

It was very selfish.

You know,
I didn't think about other people,

how it would impact them.

And then I remember
waking up in a hospital.

My first thought was,
I couldn't even do this right.

You can't even do yourself in.

So I thought,
I'm going to try to do this again.

And what's the use
of always dreaming...

Billy was still depressed after that,
and he was at my mother's house.

And this time,
he drank a bottle of lemon Pledge.

The second time,
he drank some type of cleaning fluid,

and I was the one that
had to get him in the hospital.

Even though our friendship had blown up,
Jon saved my life.

I mean, he never really
said anything to me.

The only practical answer I could give
why Billy took it so hard

was because he loved me that much

and that it k*lled him
to hurt me that much.

And eventually, I forgave him.

I finally got over it, you know,

where it was, like, okay.

He thought that it was over for him,

and to me,
he didn't even start living yet.

I went to my mom's house,
which to me was an abject surrender.

You move back into your parent's house,
you're a loser.

I didn't really know
what was going on with me.

At that point in my life,
I was just a lost soul.

And then I said that's it.

I got to go get some psychiatric help.

So I checked into an observation ward.

I remember the door slamming shut,

and it had this clank
to it when it closed.

And I thought, "Oh, crap,
I'm really, like, in the nuthouse."

And they gave me Thorazine.

And I would go over to the nurses' station
and knock and say,

"Hey, I'm okay. These people are crazy."

"Okay, Mr. Joel, here's your pills."

They released me after a couple of weeks,

and I felt chagrined.

These people had really
deep psychiatric problems.

I was just feeling sorry for myself.

And I said, that's it. I'm not going
to ever feel that sorry for myself again.

And when they let me out, I ran.
I just ran down the street.

Let me out of here. I never looked back.

I got out of the observation ward,
and I thought to myself, you can utilize

all those emotions to channel
that stuff into music.

Well, so here I am

At the end of the road

Where do I go from here?

And I was able to rent
an apartment in Oyster Bay.

It was just enough room to fit the piano.

I used to sleep under the piano,
as a matter of fact.

During that time,

I had a couple of songs
that I had written.

That I've got to begin again

Though I don't know how to start

Yes, I've got to begin again

And it's hard

So I was just writing songs
from a personal point of view.

And there was a guy who
had been managing The Hassles

who decided he was going
to shop my songs around.

He ended up meeting Michael Lang.

Michael Lang was
the promoter of Woodstock.

Kind of a hippie type.

And he had a record company
called Just Sunshine.

Michael Lang had
a terrific keen eye for new talent.

And he said, "Here's this demo of this kid
that I'm thinking about signing.

"And if you like him,

I'm going to put you in the studio
and you can produce the album."

At the time, I was the drummer in Wings

with Paul McCartney
and a brand new producer.

And I heard these demos from Billy.

I almost fell off my chair.

I said wow, this is very special.

I am so sorry that I bothered you

Now I know why I have to hide

The passion of his voice got me.

I didn't know what
you were going through

All I could see was my own side

Especially after you heard the lyrics.
Just tears your heart right out.

So I got signed to Just Sunshine Records
as a solo artist.

I couldn't believe how lucky I was.

But that's how the whole
"Cold Spring Harbor" album

project started.

Baby, all the lights are turned on...

Billy's music was nothing at all
like anything that was coming out.

He had these piano chops
like a classical piano player.

Billy's piano playing was
really uniquely astounding.

And you can always have
your way somehow

'Cause everybody loves you now

I started to make the album in New York.

During that time,
I got traded to another label.

Michael knew a guy named
Artie Ripp on the West Coast.

Artie had an artist called Velvert Turner
who was like a Jimi Hendrix,

and Michael wanted that guy on his label,

so there was kind of a swap.

It was like baseball trades.
I got traded to the West Coast.

Bye, bye...

Michael Lang plays me a tape.
He says, "The guy's name is Billy Joel."

I said, "Boy, this guy is terrific."

I said, "Where is Billy now?"
He says, "Billy's broke.

"We don't understand why nobody believes

and appreciates Billy's genius."

And I said,
"I'm glad nobody else understood it.

"I'm glad you finally wound up
at the bottom with me.

We'll go to the top together."

In 1971, I worked with Artie
at Family Records.

Billy came to Los Angeles

to record "Cold Spring Harbor"
at the Record Plant.

Artie Ripp called
me up one night and said,

"I've got a kid
from Long Island coming out,

and I'm doing an album on him."

And he said,
"I want you to play drums on it."

We met at Record Plant, Studio A,

"Okay, let's get on the instruments
and let's play it."

Okay, we're rolling.

Rolling, number one, "Turn Around."

With Billy, he had his material down,

and there wasn't
a whole lot to fine tweak.

All you had to do was bring
your contribution to it.

Turn around

And I will sing for you a song

I remember when they were recording
the "Cold Spring Harbor" record

all the stuff I heard just broke my heart.

I always thought I'd be in the picture.
I mean, I felt I should be there.

It was just really, really hard.

And "Cold Spring Harbor,"
were a lot of soft songs on that.

So you actually saw the emotion
of this artist coming out.

She's got a way about her

I don't know what it is

But I know that I can't
live without her...

But these were really poetry songs.

And you could tell from the lyrics
that he was really in love with Elizabeth.

...without a sound she touches me

And I get turned around

Oh

It was all from Elizabeth leaving him
that he was so sad.

And he put it into music.

She's got a smile that heals me

Oh, I don't know why it is

But I have to laugh
when she reveals me

That kid that was just crushed
wrote a beautiful album.

It just poured out of him.

Life does things for you
that you can't do for yourself sometimes.

...but I know that I can't live

Without her anyway

- You ready?
- Yup.

I was in the studio recording my songs,

and Artie was producing.

And he would say, "Sing it again.

Do another one, sing another take."

- Ah...
- One more time.

When you're here...

- One more time.
- Ah...

Okay, one more time. Here we go.

I think I realized right off the bat
he didn't know what he was doing.

After three or four takes,
I start to hate the thing.

You can do one
better than that. Again.

It was ridiculous how many times
he made Billy do a take.

Standby, we're rolling.
This is Lionheart.

Ten, huh. Here you go.

Billy was a quiet young man
in those years.

He didn't fight back against Artie.

That's all I got of that.

Yeah, the front sucks.

Yeah, I know.

Working with Artie,
it was like pulling teeth.

It wasn't fun.

I really didn't know what
it was supposed to be like.

I just heard crazy stories,

like everybody is nuts
in the music business,

and that's what it seemed like to me.

And that's, that was what life was
for a couple of months.

Once upon a time in the land...

When we'd finished doing all the tracks,

Billy had gone back to New York.

Then Artie had free reign.

The songs themselves were fabulous,

but somehow he got into the studio

with those songs,
and they became corrupted.

At the time, some of the singles
would be formatted

to the two minute 30 slot for radio.

The tape machine, you can oscillate
and speed it up just a little.

Now you're in the center of the stage

Everything revolves on what you...

And so, it seems that
when they went and mastered,

they hadn't brought the album track
back to regular speed.

When I first sat down and listened

to the finished product,

I said this ain't right.

She's got a smile that heals me

It got screwed up, and my voice came out
like a chipmunk on that album.

But I have to laugh
when she reveals me

I was humiliated.

I actually took the disk
that they gave me,

and I threw it like
a Frisbee down the street.

That's what I thought it was worth,
thought it was a piece of junk.

I'm so alienated from that whole process.

I feel very distant from it

because it was such
an unpleasant experience.

But it was probably around that time
that I started to see Elizabeth again.

I remember he would pass
a cassette tape to my sister

to pass along to me.

Hearing those songs was overwhelming.

She's got a way about her

It was stunning that he could
accomplish something like that.

But I know that
I can't live without her

And so, it had an impact. I mean, it's...

Yeah.

I don't know what it is

It must have been close to a year
that she wasn't around at all.

And then she was in my life again.

She's got a smile that heals me

So, Elizabeth and I rented
a place with some money

that Artie Ripp was giving me
on a monthly basis.

We laughed and we had fun
like we always did,

but our lives really revolved
around his music

and what he wanted to do with his life.

At that time, I was supposed to be
on tour promoting the album.

I didn't even know what promoting meant.

I just, "Play over there."
Okay. Went and played.

So I would just be playing in clubs

or showcases or conventions,
wherever I got booked.

We played The Troubadour.
I mean, that was like the showcase place

in Los Angeles at the time.

Good evening. Hello, hello.
A lot of people here for the first show?

This is called "Everybody Loves You Now."

See how all the people

Gather 'round

Hey, isn't it a thrill
to see them crawl?

We had a great audience.

And after that, there was a whole bunch
of attention paid to us.

Ah, this is what you wanted
ain't you proud?

'Cause everybody loves you now

And so, the "Cold Spring Harbor" album
is getting some good write-ups.

But we would get feedback
from fans and so forth

that they couldn't get the album
because it wasn't in the stores.

The fans who were turned
onto what we're doing here,

they can't go buy the record.
That's part of the process.

And so there was
distribution lacking here.

Come around when you're feelin' low

I went on tour for over a year,
kind of living

on peanut butter and jelly sandwiches,

trying to promote this record
for this production company.

And I realized I'm getting screwed.

Artie Ripp was supposed to be sending me

a check every month,
and the check didn't come,

so I couldn't pay the rent,
and then we were locked out of the house.

After, you know,
all these months and months of touring

and playing and performing,
nobody got paid.

I didn't get paid.
I couldn't pay the band.

There was nothing to show for it.

...been a long, long night

And there isn't an end in...

With my first record contract,

I gave up my publishing,
I gave up my copyrights,

I gave up my record royalties,

everything but
my firstborn child, I think.

Just signed it all away.

And that's kind of par for the course
for the music business back in those days.

It was pretty rough.

So I said, you know, this is ridiculous.

Let's go out to California.
Maybe I can figure this out.

You know, my first real memory is when
we drove cross-country to California,

in I think 1972.

And I remember my mom
had a Datsun station wagon

for the journey of 3,000 miles.

You know, my life up until that point,
there wasn't a lot of stability.

But to me, as a five-year-old,
it was adventure.

I was going on an adventure
with my mother and with Billy.

You know, we were young.

We both wanted adventures.

And Bill was offering me something
that was completely different.

It was like, oh, let's see.

I'm just going to stay here
and keep going to school

and working and taking care of Sean,
or I'm going to go

to California with my boyfriend.

Oh, and now she's heading
out to California

And she doesn't know what's comin'

But she's sure of what
she's leaving behind

So we drove across country.

I got to see a good amount of America
on that trip that I'd never seen before,

and it was so different
than where I was from.

It was completely unknown.

Our trip cross country,
it was kind of scary.

It was like, is this happening?
Am I doing the right thing?

And when you hear the song
"Stop in Nevada,"

it was so haunting.

It was like a conscience.

Though she finds it hard to leave him

She knows it would be worse to stay

We got to California,

and we tried to figure out
how we could make a living

and figure out what was going on.

There was a little bit of money,
but not much.

Things were tight. You know, we were...

we were making it,
I think, very much day to day.

We stayed in a hotel.

And we didn't know
where we were going to live.

We didn't have any prospects.
I was worried about it.

When you look into my eyes

And you see the crazy gypsy in my soul

It was Valentine's Day.

We didn't have money,
so I wasn't able to go and buy a gift.

My gift was the song.

Well, I never had a place

That I could call my very own

But that's alright my love

'Cause you're my home

I wanted Elizabeth to know,
you're my home.

Wherever you are, that's where

our house is. That's our home.

And you tell me
everything will be alright

When I listen to those songs,
I don't hear what anybody else hears.

I feel the feelings that I had then.

I see the shaft of light
coming in through the window

and reflecting off Billy's hair.

I hear Sean playing in the background.

That's what I hear.

Whenever we're together that's my home

Billy didn't have
any allies until Elizabeth.

Then, it was the two of them
against the world.

Indiana's early morning too

Oh, high up in the hills of California

Home is just another word for you

Oh

So I decided I needed to get a lawyer,

I needed to get an accountant,

and I needed to get out of this deal
that I had signed with Artie Ripp.

And I was going to sit Artie Ripp out.

If he's not going to negotiate,
he's not going to get anything from me.

He's not going to get any music,

not any promotion, nothing,

because it was the only leverage I had.

They made a decision to not
take any money from Artie,

so they were on strike.

And so, I had to get an apartment,
I had to get a job.

I started looking in these different clubs
where a piano player could play.

Obviously,
Bill could not work as Billy Joel,

and so he got a job at a place
called the Executive Room.

I needed to use an alibi to work.

My full name is William Martin Joel,
so I was Bill Martin at the keyboards.

It was a small local bar,

and it had one of these pianos
that had a leatherette rim around it

so people could lean on the piano
while they were drinking.

And I really put on the act.

Good evening.
It's really great to see you.

You know, this whole...
the lawdy schmooze guy

with the shirt open to here.
How you doing?

And the funny thing was
this was in Hollywood.

These guys would come over and go,
"Hey, kid, you're really great.

I can get you in the recording
business," you know?

And I'd be, "No, thanks.

I just want to be here
on the lounge. It's great."

I knew this is a real-life experience.

And I thought,
I've got to get a song out of this.

This next song is a true story.

It's called "Piano Man."

And that's where
the "Piano Man" song came from.

I liked the way it sounded,
but I was told it was unusual.

It ended up being written
in 6/8 time, like a waltz.

It was a very strange tempo,

but melody was always primary to me.

It's 9 o'clock on a Saturday

The regular crowd shuffles in

There's an old man sittin' next to me

Making love to his tonic and gin...

With "Piano Man," I don't think

of it as a personal narrative
very much, you know?

I think he's kind of like
a painter of milieu, you know?

Like in the piano bar,
he's talking about a scene

that he's passing through

more than talking about himself.

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 knew it complete

When I wore a younger man's clothes

And then, when you hear this harmonica,

no one ever pulled out
a harmonica in a piano bar.

It's not a piano lounge song.
This sounds like a sea shanty, you know.

Sing us a song you're the piano man

Sing us a song tonight

Well, we're all in the mood
for a melody

And you've got us feelin' alright

"Piano Man" exists as a kind
of Billy's theme song.

But the depth of "Piano Man"
is something that's overlooked.

It's so much a part of the culture
that it's hard to really hear it fresh.

But if you take the time
to actually listen to it,

there's a kind of empathy in that song.

Now John at the bar
is a friend of mine

He gets me my drinks...

All of those characters
are talking about dreams they had

that are unfulfilled.

But there's someplace
that he'd rather be

It's quite moving.

He says, "Bill, I believe
this is k*lling me,"

As the smile ran away from his face

"Piano Man" is a mirror facing a mirror.

I mean, you can just see
infinite reflections.

Because here's a musician
talking about another musician

who's telling us
about other people's lives.

There's a lot of emotion involved
because you care about the stories.

You care about the people involved,
and that's how this thing lives on and on.

Now Paul is a real estate novelist

Who never had time for a wife

And he's talking with Davy
who's still in the navy

And probably will be for life

So these are all based on real people.

And Elizabeth got a job
as a waitress at this place.

So even in the song,

it says "the waitress
is practicing politics,"

she was the waitress.

And the waitress
is practicing politics

As the businessmen slowly get stoned

Yes, they're sharing a drink

They call loneliness,
but it's better...

Bill can take a kernel
of something that happened

and create a story that is universal.

And he would get to the DNA
of the human experience.

And that's why that song,
it's like the everyman anthem.

Sing us a song

You're the Piano Man

Early in our career,
when you're playing the bars,

all you're looking for
is for all these people

to get on the same page.

It's going to be these singalongs, right?

But I'm telling you right now,
there ain't a crowd

I've ever played
that didn't want "Piano Man"

once you started playing it.

"Piano Man" comes on,

I don't care where you are,
the world stops,

and that's what we're doing
for the next five minutes

and 50 seconds.

And it doesn't matter the age.

It doesn't matter when you first heard it

or what you were into,
you're singing "Piano Man."

Sing us a song

You're the Piano Man

Sing us a song tonight

Well, we're all in the mood
for a melody

And you've got us feelin' alright

I didn't think I'd get stuck with a hook,
but it's become a signature piece.

I actually did a couple
of gigs at one time

when we didn't even play the song.

And I caught a lot of flack for it.
"You didn't even do 'Piano Man.'"

Oh, I'm sorry.
Okay, I guess we got to do it.

So it's mandatory.

On the other hand,
that's not the worst thing

that could happen either.

Thank you!

Hey, do another one!

The Executive Room,

it was how we supported ourselves
while we were trying to figure out

the contractual issues.

But then at some point,
we had the opportunity

to move to Malibu
to the top of a mountain.

Today I'm livin' like a rich man's son

Tomorrow mornin' I could be a bum

We were moving to New York
to work at Atlantic Records,

so our house was empty.

It was a rustic, adorable little A-frame.

We're at the very top of the canyon,

and we had a baby grand
right at the window.

We had this idyllic life
up in the Malibu mountains.

We just fell into
this fantastic situation.

Those were just golden years.

And during that time,

my mother had been very supportive
of everything I'd done,

but my mother said,
"It's time to come home."

But I knew if we were married,
I didn't have to go home.

In 1973, Elizabeth said,
"We're getting married today."

And I said, "We are?"
And she said, "Yeah. Or else I'm leaving."

We went to the Malibu courthouse.

It was real quick. It was a ceremony.

"Okay. I now pronounce you
man and wife." Boom.

I did have trepidation
about getting married.

I realized I'm just at the beginning
of a rock 'n' roll career here.

I'm going to be going on the road.

I'm going to be touring.
I'm going to be writing.

I'm going to be recording.

There's a lot I'm going to be doing
that's not going to be a home life.

So that's where my trepidations come from.

It wasn't because I didn't love
the woman I was with.

I was just scared. For good reason.

So it was a lot of emotions
going on all at the same time.

But I saw it as being good for me.

Because at that time in our lives,
all we did was music.

It was all about music.

I was living in
this beautiful little chalet

and just writing my head off.

In that house in Malibu,

that is where we got
the first phone call from Clive Davis.

Clive Davis, the man who signed
Janis Joplin, Santana, Chicago,

Blood, Sweat & Tears, and Neil Diamond.

And I'll always remember that.

I mean, it's like
one of those things that,

you know,
"Oh, it's Columbia Records on the phone."

Hah! "Who is this?" You know.

But it was Columbia Records.

A year or so before we moved
to California, I had been touring.

We had done a promotional concert
in Philadelphia at this radio station.

Well, good evening, I'm Ed Sciaky.

I'd like to welcome all of you
here in the studio,

and all of you at home
to WMMR'S live radio concert.

So now let's welcome Billy Joel!

And I played the song "Captain Jack,"
which was a new song.

Saturday night

And you're still hangin' around

You're tired of livin'
in your one horse town

The radio station recorded it,
and they continued to play it

because they got requested
by people calling in.

"Just play that song about Captain Jack."

And it was the most requested song
in the radio station's history.

I didn't know that it was
being played on the radio.

And the local record promotion guys,
they reported back to Columbia Records.

"There's all these people
calling in for this song

by this guy named Billy Joel.
Nobody knows who he is or where he is."

Oh

'Cause Captain Jack
will get you high tonight

And take you to your special island

Captain Jack...

I first came to know about Billy Joel,

it was a recording that he had done
of "Captain Jack"

that piqued my interest,

and I told people
I would love to meet him,

I would love to see him perform,

I would love to listen
to the rest of his material.

So I had a meeting
with Clive in his bungalow

at the Beverly Hills Hotel,
which was very hoity-toity.

Wow, look at this.

And Clive expressed an interest
in signing me to Columbia Records.

Now, I'd heard that Atlantic
was interested in signing me.

This is a nice situation
to find myself in.

Nobody wanted to sign me before.

All of a sudden,
I got the biggest record companies

in the world wanting to sign me.

I decided to go with Columbia
because it was the label of Bob Dylan.

Bob Dylan wasn't known
as a great record seller,

but he was Bob Dylan.

And I thought, you know what?

If this is a label

that's continuing to release records

by this guy who doesn't really
sell number one albums,

but they're committed to him,
I thought, okay,

I would like to have a career like that.

So I went with Columbia Records.

Okay, sound two.

The day I signed,

I remember meeting with
the head of Columbia Records

and playing them some of my stuff.

Hey Lord, would ya
look out for her tonight

And make sure that
all her dreams are sweet

Said now, would ya guide her along...

When I approach any of the artists
that I have signed, you don't say,

oh, they'll be a star.

You would ask,
is there enough original talent?

Is there enough innate ability?

Is there a touch of genius
in the best case?

Hey Lord, would ya
look out for her tonight

If she is sleepin' under the sky

Probably the last artist
that I signed to Columbia was

an artist that I think is going to happen
in a very, very big way.

I'm talking Billy Joel.
He's a marvelous talent.

Hey, don'tcha give her
too much rain...

The level of the material
was extremely high, and his charisma,

his energy level was extraordinary.

Hey now, would ya
look out for her tonight

And make sure that
she's gonna be alright

Until she's home and here with me

With me

For "Piano Man," I'm not sure
what I was trying to do with the album.

I know I had all kinds
of disparate material.

Kind of a lot of different influences.

There's some country western,
bluegrass even, the waltz.

I suppose the through line
on "Piano Man" was the West,

because to me it was all new.
The Wild West.

And I didn't know what was
going to be a hit or not.

Billy had such an interesting range
of influences.

He found a way to not be beholden
to just one genre,

even though maybe that would've made him
more acceptable to critics, for instance.

He said, "Son, can you
play me a memory?"

Billy, he just had all of these kind of
un-rock-and-roll-y influences

that-that knee-jerked some-some critics
and some people who didn't understand

sort of exactly
what he was up to, you know?

And so, earlier in his career,

he was misunderstood,
which is kind of a shame

because they really kind of misperceived

the value of some of
his greatest work, you know?

He says, "Bill, I believe
this is k*lling me"

As the smile ran away from his face

It took about six months
for that record to start getting played.

And they had to work it.
And then it kind of went crazy.

"Piano Man" was actually a hit.

But the part of the contract with Artie
was becoming a terrible problem.

After Columbia looked at the contract
eight ways to Sunday and saw

there ain't no way to break this contract,
they realized they had to deal with me.

If I only had the words to tell you

If you only had the time to understand

Artie got a quarter for every album sold
for the first ten years

that Billy was on Columbia Records.

He got my publishing rights.
He even had my copyrights.

I didn't know at the time
what I had given away.

But to be fair, the only person
who believed in me back

at the beginning of things was Artie Ripp.

He put his money where his mouth--
Or he put my money where his mouth was.

And it wasn't a good deal,
but it was a deal.

It was a very good investment
on Artie's part.

But Bill only made $7,768
from "Piano Man,"

and all the other money
went to someone else.

So Bill, you know, worked and toured more
and the gigs were better,

but it didn't change
our lives all that much

because we didn't make any money.

But I only have these arms to hold you

And it's all that
you can ask of any man

At the end of that tour,
which was about a year, they told me,

"You got to go in and do another album."

Flying east on a plane...

On the "Streetlife" album,
I was kind of following

the Jackson Browne school of songwriting,

which was confessional, softer approach
with a little bit of country music in it.

And I know it should be fun

But I think I should've packed my g*n

Got that old suburban showdown...

When I listen to "Streetlife Serenade,"
the influence, of course,

of the California sound, it's evident.

...same old tired jokes

Bored to death on...

In the '60s and early '70s,
there was a mythology about California.

It was just a place where
a lot of people showed up.

There were artists like Joni Mitchell,

Cat Stevens, James Taylor.

California was a very open
and wonderful scene.

But Billy did not fit in.
He wasn't in that group of people.

I'm sure it pissed him off.

He was putting out this stuff,
and they were good-sounding records,

but they weren't viewed
the same as other people.

Perhaps his songs were too poppy.

They weren't moody
and self-referential enough.

Perhaps he was too New York.

Los Angelenos

All come from somewhere

To live in sunshine

Their funky...

I just imagine that he must have felt
horribly out of place.

Just his attitude

does not seem very California to me.

You know, that sort of mellow,

let's all be friends-type mentality.

That seems like a very
un-Billy Joel-type vibe.

Tanning out in the beaches
with their Mexican reefers

No one ever has to feel like a refugee

Going into garages for exotic massages

Making up for all the time gone by

Ooh ooh

The "Streetlife" album
was written in a hurry,

recorded in a hurry.

And there was all this pressure.

It was like, "Okay, well,
you better come up with a hit."

The song "The Entertainer,"
it was basically autobiographical

about putting out "Piano Man."

The magic number in those days

to put out a single
was the three minute mark.

The original song of "Piano Man"
was a much longer recording,

and they said, "We gotta edit it."

I said, what do you mean
you gotta edit it?

I was very touchy about that.
Don't, don't be chopping my song up.

I was starting to become disenchanted
with the music business,

and "The Entertainer" was my way
of complaining about it, I suppose.

I am the entertainer

And I know just where I stand

Another serenader

In another long-haired band

Today I am your champion

I may have won your hearts

But I know the game
you'll forget my name

And I won't be here in another year

If I don't stay on the charts

When he wrote "The Entertainer,"
it became such a negative

to a number of people
in the music business,

because they looked at,

"I'm out here slogging away every day
trying to get your records on the radio,

and you say these things about me."

And they stopped working for him
completely because they were so mad

that they were doing the best they could,
and this was the gratitude they got.

I am the entertainer
I bring to you my songs

I'd like to spend a day or two

But I can't stay that long

No, I got to meet expenses

I got to stay in line

Gotta get those fees to the agencies

And I'd love to stay
but there's bills to pay...

Essentially, the "Piano Man" song

was about a guy kvetching
about playing at a piano bar,

and this follow-up is the guy kvetching

about having a hit record
in the music business.

So it's sort of like,
alright, I'm doing well,

let me screw this up somehow.

Ah, it took me years to write it

They were the best years of my life

It was a beautiful song
but it ran too long

If you're going to have a hit

You gotta make it fit so they cut it

Down to 3:05

So "Streetlife" bombed.

Columbia Records was pretty disappointed.

They wanted a hit.

What people were trying to do,

wherever they were,
whether it was Laurel Canyon

or it was Greenwich Village,
they were trying to find out who they are.

And I think a lot of that involves leaving

where you're from
and going somewhere else.

But I think what you find is something

about where you're from.

And where Billy's from is New York.

Streetlife serenader...

He was a bridge-and-tunnel artist,
you know?

As I count myself as, you know?

We stuck to a lot of where we came from
in what we wrote about,

but we wrote about it using
slightly different tools,

I would say.

I'm obviously more identified
with New Jersey,

so I probably came more out of

a folk rock 'n' roll background, you know.

Billy is still more
identified with New York.

Midnight masquerader...

He had all that Broadway
and that Tin Pan Alley,

which is why Billy's melodies
are better than mine.

With Billy, he's able to
walk in with a melody

and make it sound like he just made it up
on his way into the room,

but I know he didn't.

His melodies are unbelievably intricate.
I don't know how he does it.

I've always thought
that was Billy's strong suit.

When you listen to Billy,
you hear a lot of the American songbook.

His influences are deep.

And so what I would say
is that he found his voice,

but it was not a Californian voice.

It was an interesting time in my life.

Things were in flux.

So I decided I wanted to get back...

to New York and make
more of a rock 'n' roll album.

Say goodbye to Hollywood

Say goodbye, my baby

Say goodbye to Hollywood

Say goodbye, my baby

I was on a bus on my way back
to Highland Falls, New York.

Elizabeth found us a house
up on the Hudson River,

and it was fall.

It was just gorgeous.

The colors were ablaze,
the trees were like gold

and red, and I remember thinking,

this is the New York state
that I loved when I was a kid.

This is magic.
We don't have this in California.

And I wrote this love song
to New York on the bus.

Some folks like to get away

Take a holiday from the neighborhood

Hop a flight to Miami Beach
or to Hollywood

But I'm taking a Greyhound

On the Hudson River line

I'm in a New York state of mind

"Some folks like to get away.

"Take a holiday from the neighborhood.

I'm in a New York state of mind."

And the minute I got back
to this rented house

and I saw my wife,
I said, "Do we have a piano?"

"Yeah. It's upstairs."

Let me just go up to the piano.
Ran up to the piano and wrote the song

probably within about an hour.

It just came out.

...I'm needing

And I don't want to waste more time

I'm in a New York state of mind

"New York State of Mind,"
that one stood out.

It was a phrase that I heard
my dad say all the time with his friends,

and I thought it was
the most sophisticated,

brilliant phrase.

...out of touch

With the rhythm and blues

It doesn't matter who you are, what race,

ethnicity, whatever you--
religion you come from.

In New York, yeah, New York.

That's the religion.
And here's a song for you.

It's soothing, it's elegant,
and, you know,

it's the anthem for New York.

You know,
it comes right down to reality

And that's fine with me
'cause I have let it slide

Don't care if it's Chinatown

Or on Riverside, no, no

I don't have any reasons

Billy's a huge Sinatra fan.
He's a huge Tony Bennett fan.

And I think he wanted to write a song
that was an homage to that style.

But what ended up happening
was he wrote a song

that has lasted for decades.

I'm just taking a Greyhound

On the Hudson River line

I'm in a New York...

...in a New York...

I'm in a New York...

We're in a New York...

I'm in a New York...

...state of...

Mind

Yeah, yeah!

I grew up in New York.
I'm a New Yorker.

My speech patterns are New York.

The music that I like,
it was all New York based.

That's what I think of
when I think of home.

It's my roots.

They say that these are not
the best of times

But they're the only times
I've ever known

In 1949, my parents had
a rented apartment in the Bronx,

and they moved to Long Island
when I was a year old,

and that's where I grew up.

My mom was in love with Long Island.

She grew up in Brooklyn,
so she saw Long Island

as this vast playground,
the 120 mile long beach.

And she would always take us to the water.

And I fell in love
with boating because of that.

It was a mystical experience for me.

Everybody in my neighborhood
was Catholic, Protestant, white.

But we were Jewish.
So it was a weird place to grow up.

And right outside of New York City,
which is the melting pot of all places.

And here I am in Hicksville.

I might as well have been
in Kansas or something.

My mom grew up in a,
in a family that all sang

in Gilbert and Sullivan operettas.

She met my dad in a production
of "The Mikado."

He was a piano player, actually.

He assisted the conductor,
and that's how they met.

My mom would play records
of classical music,

Broadway shows,
Gilbert and Sullivan, jazz.

So I was always enchanted with music

before I actually knew
how to play the piano.

And my mom was the one who encouraged
taking classical piano lessons.

When I was taking piano lessons,
I started not wanting to read the dots.

It was like homework.

And I thought, I wanted
to make up my own stuff.

But my mom knew
what Beethoven sounded like.

My mom knew what Mozart sounded like.
She knew what Bach sounded like.

I had to make stuff up like
Bach, Mozart, and Beethoven.

'Cause if it didn't sound like them,
she'd go, "That doesn't sound like Bach."

And keep going with stuff like that.

And my mother would be
in the kitchen cooking,

and she'd go, "Hey, you're picking
that one up pretty quick."

I'd go, "Yeah, I like this piece.
It's pretty easy."

And then the next day,
when it was time for me to practice again,

I didn't remember
what I played the day before.

So I'd make up something else.

And she'd go, "What's that?"
I'd say, "Oh, that's the second movement."

I started developing an ear.

So I just started writing music.

That's when I think
I really started writing.

The piano teacher lived right down
the block from where my house was.

She also taught ballet.

And there were a couple
of guys in the neighborhood

that used to call me out.

"Hey, Billy, where's your tutu?"

And they'd knock the books out
of my hand and smack me.

So I took up boxing to learn
how to protect myself,

'cause I would get picked on
and I was tired of it.

I was never really comfortable
with the rest of the world.

I felt like an outsider.

Let's put it that way.

He really didn't like school very much.

He would get dressed,
and he would then wait

till my mother pulled
the car out and went,

went to work, and he would
go back into the house.

And he would then go up into my closet,

and he'd bring books
and a pillow and a flashlight.

Billy had stacks of books everywhere.

You'd almost break your neck
walking into the room.

He would read everything
he could get his hands on,

but he loved history.

So he was an avid reader,

and he would play the piano all the time.

My father was a pianist.

And we had a piano in the house,
an old upright that wasn't very good,

but my father could make it sound good
because of the way he played.

I thought he was a wonderful pianist,
but he didn't teach me anything.

My father, Howard,

he never really showed Bill
kindness and compassion

and understanding towards his talent.

He didn't really see it.

And with Howard, classical music,
it had to be strict by the book.

Exactly how, say, Beethoven wrote it.

One thing I remember,

I was supposed to be playing
the "Moonlight Sonata."

Must have been about eight years old,

and rock 'n' roll
was around at that point.

And I started playing...

Instead of playing...

I started playing...

He came down the stairs.

Bam! I got whacked.

And I got whacked so hard, I...

he knocked me out.

I was unconscious for, like, a minute.

And I remember waking up going,
well, that got his attention.

And that was my memory of...

of his piano lessons.

So, he didn't teach me much.

You know, I don't remember my mother
and my father together having fun.

I saw stuff with them
when I was a little kid

that was not, not good.

Things were very tense between them.

In the '50s, when I was about eight,
he left when my parents got divorced,

and actually my sister and I

were kind of relieved
when they got divorced,

because then there wasn't going to be
any more arguments or fighting

or any of that scary stuff.

So I was brought up by my mother.
I didn't know much about him.

When Howard left, it was a relief
in that my mother felt more free,

but it did give her a lot more stress
in that she had to then work...

work very, very hard
to keep the family going.

Judy, she was my best friend.

I was there almost all the time.
I could walk in their house anytime.

But a depression settled over the house
after Howard was gone.

Roz, she was a young mother.

And suddenly, she's left alone
to raise two children.

And it wasn't easy.

She didn't have beyond
a high school education,

and she worried about money.

My mother was a very loving woman.

I was surrounded by love.
I was almost smothered by it.

I think it was to try to compensate
for my dad's lack of it.

But there were also some
troubling things about her.

She was very isolated.

She was lonely a lot.

And I think she drank
to assuage her loneliness.

I would see Mom drinking very often.
And we would say, "Mom, don't start,

you know how you get."

And she would be crying

and screaming for hours
and hours and hours.

It was a difficult
household to grow up in,

because you never knew
if the mother you left

when you went to school
would be the same mother

that was there when you
came home from school.

We knew that there was
something very wrong,

that she was most likely bipolar.

We didn't know the word at the time.

And in those days, they didn't have
a lot of medicine for it, you know?

When you're depressed like that,

it affects your mental state,
your physical state, everything.

And the children naturally
were hurt by it, you know?

And I think they were deeply affected.
Deeply.

There wasn't peace,

because we knew that we had
to walk on eggshells.

That anything could throw her off.

Sometimes she drove me nuts,
and she was difficult to live with.

And then sometimes she was so loving
and she saved my life.

So, it's a dichotomy. Yeah.

We felt each other's pain and worry,
and we would get strength from each other.

We're very close. We are very close.
Yes, we had to be.

We were kind of outcasts.

We were the divorced family on the block.

We didn't have a new car.
We didn't have a dad.

We were the Jews.
We didn't have any money.

Sometimes we didn't have any food.

So there were, there were some struggles.

Philip Nyman was my maternal grandfather,
my mother's father.

He was English.

He was dressed so perfectly.
Always the perfect English gentleman.

He was the dominant
male figure in my life.

Brilliant man.
He was a big influence on me.

And he would always be quizzing me
about classical music.

He would take us to the
Brooklyn Academy of Music,

and he would sneak us in
by giving the guy at the door

a pack of cigarettes,
because he never had any money.

Billy would come home
and tell us all about it,

and then he would sit down
on their clunky piano

and just play it for us fully, completely.

I mean, as a child,
I didn't know that much about music,

but I knew what he was playing
was what he had heard,

which to me was absolutely amazing.

The piano was an extension of Billy.

And that's, I think,
how he dealt with Roz sometimes,

the moods that she displayed.

But she always did the best she could.

She always had
their best interest at heart.

And no matter how poor
we were at the time

or how hard she had to work,
Mom, she knew that Billy had

to have piano lessons,
that this had to be nurtured.

She knew that he was going
to be something someday.

Mom was my cheerleader.

Mom said, "Anything you set
your mind out to do, you can do."

And I credit my mom
with sticking with me.

She never gave up.

She was a, a believer.

I decided at that point in my life,
I'm going to be a musician.

That was the year I was supposed
to graduate high school. I didn't.

Get my diploma. I said to hell with it.

And my mom, she was worried.

She worried that I was going
to-- not going to be able

to get a job if I didn't
graduate high school,

at least to have a diploma.

At least have the ability
to go to college.

But I had already written that off.
I said, I'm not going to college.

As I recall, what I said to her was
"You don't have to worry about...

"I'm not going to Columbia University.
I'm going to go to Columbia Records.

And you don't need
a high school diploma there."

After "Streetlife Serenade,"
Bill needed a manager,

so we asked Columbia
who their favorite managers were.

And one of the names that they gave us
was Caribou Management.

And Jim Guercio,
he was part of the company.

He was a famous producer.
He produced Chicago,

he produced the Beach Boys,

and he was going
to produce the next album.

The initial thing Jimmy Guercio
wanted me to do was,

"Okay, well, you're a piano player.

"So the musicians who would be
good for you to work with

would be Elton's band."

Which I thought was a terrible idea.

Why would I want to work

with the other well-known
piano player's band?

I mean, the lack of imagination
was staggering.

And I was already having critical issues
with people comparing me to Elton.

I don't play the same way he does.

Elton's style is very rhythmic,
you know? Like...

You know? And my style is probably...

it's more five-fingered.

It's more movement stuff.
It took a while for people

to get away from using
the Elton John comparison.

I think it's pretty much
died down at this point.

I hope so. Please!

If you knew anything about Billy Joel,

the last thing in the world
he wanted to do

was make an Elton John record,

and the furthest he wanted to be
from any other artist was Elton John.

But then he goes in the studio
with the Elton John band,

and it's awful.

I've seen the lights
go out on Broadway

They were good musicians,

but they didn't get it.

I saw the ruins at my feet

It sounded like Elton.
I said, I don't want

to sound like Elton.
I want to sound like me.

I left. I said this isn't going to work.
I want to make my own sound.

And Jimmy Guercio
is not going to be the producer.

I wanted to put together
a group of New York musicians

who had had New York experiences,

because that's what I had.

Well, the first member of that band
was Doug Stegmeyer, the bass player,

who really put the rest of them together.

And he recommended
that I work with the drummer,

Liberty DeVitto.

Because I didn't want polite drums.
I wanted nasty drums.

And then Richie Cannata
and Russell joined us.

And they were from Long Island too.

That was the nucleus
of the band for a while.

So I went into the studio with my guys
and we recorded "Turnstiles."

And I decided to produce it myself.

And I don't know anything
about production.

We held the concert out in Brooklyn...

But I wanted some rock 'n' roll.

I wanted the volume
that we played at live.

I wanted that somehow
represented on a recording.

They turned our power down

And drove us underground

But we went right on with the show

Oh

Oh, oh, oh

I've seen the lights
go out on Broadway

Nobody really gave
a sh*t about us, you know?

We were just these bunch
of guys from Long Island,

and then Billy decided to use us
rather than Elton's band.

But we were the better fit.
He needed some grease.

He did not need boiled meat.
He needed pizza.

And we were the sauce.

They burned the churches up in Harlem

"Turnstiles," there was nobody

over our shoulders saying,
you know, what to do,

and everybody played their a*s off.

The flames were everywhere
but no one really...

You know, they grew with the material
as I was writing it,

and they became part
of the recording process.

And there was a formative aspect to it

that we were getting together
with the band that you could hear.

We learned a lot together.
We grew together.

I've seen the rats
lie down on Broadway

Oh, I watched the mighty skyline fall

The "Turnstiles" album, it's not
the most well-produced album in the world,

but the material has
a certain maturity to it.

And I feel like I kind of hit
my stride as a writer.

Bill was in the studio.
We're making a record. Everything's great.

But now we had a whole other problem.
We had to get another manager.

I thought all they cared about
was what Bill could do for them

and not what they could do for Bill.

And I saw that repeatedly
played out over and over

and over again, and it drove me crazy.

She understood the business.
She was watching everybody else screw up.

And we would have
these discussions about it.

She took this all in. She was a sponge.

And I realized I need
somebody who knows me.

Elizabeth was my wife.
Who knows me better than she does?

And Bill just said,
"You know, why don't you manage me?

"I mean, you can't do any worse
than the rest of them."

And I thought, well, yeah.

And the story he likes to tell
is that he woke up the next morning,

and there were like,
you know, 15 super phones

on the main floor of our apartment

and that there were
cabinets installed and...

And that's not really true,
but it's close to true.

And she was critical at that point.

It was imperative that
she took over the management

because she knew what needed to be done.

I had no reason
for anybody to believe in me.

This back-breakin' bone-shakin'

Belly-achin', hard...

But I knew that we needed
a management company.

Yes, it's keeping me alive
doin' nine to five...

And I slowly but surely
put together a team of people.

I have a different management company.
You might not know who they are.

I was with another management company.

But the company I'm with now
is New York-based.

It's called Home Run.
Nothing to do with baseball.

It's a home-run agency.

So we started a little office

at Home Run,

and there was like a little g*ng
called the Mean Bros.

And the guys were like his brothers.

If you're friends
with somebody in New York,

you're always testing your friendship.

You punch them in the shoulder
when you see them, and ow!

Or you insult them.

You know, that's how you know
somebody's your friend.

With Billy,
I met him in November of 1974,

and we've had this incredible ride.

So, you know,

the Mean Brothers and all of us,
we became close as a little family.

We've been at this forever.

We're like brothers, you know?
It's very tight.

You know, we protect him, we watch him,
make sure he's okay.

Oh, baby

I think you were lost in the '70s

You know,
it's like he had a band,

and then he had a band around him
that tried to enhance his career.

We were like a band of warriors,
and we were all in the same boat.

There was a closeness and a camaraderie
that still exists today.

It's weird to be sitting here


like, reflecting on this thing.

I remember the one time
I thought we really made it,

we were staying at a Holiday Inn,

and they had on the marquee
at the Holiday Inn,

"Welcome, Billy Joel Band."

And we're like, we made it!

We're on the marquee!
We're getting top billing!

We all went by the sign
and took a picture,

look, Billy Joel band!

But we didn't have a big hit album.

"Turnstiles" came out in 1976,

and then I went out on the road again.

We used to open up for a lot of acts.

We used to open up
for the Doobie Brothers,

Olivia Newton-John, Beach Boys.

Da, da, da, da. Everybody.
We opened up for everybody.

And if you're not good,


"Get off the sta-- Boo!"

You know, they'd be yelling
for the other band,

so you got to get good really quick.

By the time we got
to the "Turnstiles" tour,

he had both become
accomplished as a songwriter

as well as a performer.

He had a great sense of drama.

He had the magic.

There's so many nights I remember
Billy breaking a bass piano string.

Who hits the piano that hard
that you can break a piano string?

You know, and now, all of a sudden,
we're coming into our own.

We were doing great on the road.

The crowds were going crazy.

We were blowing headliners off the stage.

But we weren't selling any records.

"Turnstiles," it was a total bust.

I had not had that big hit record

that the record company wants
all their artists to have.

And I got a little worried,

so I started to write new songs.

You know, it was like,
"Time for the follow-up.

"Let's go Bill, get in that studio.

Make another album."

But I didn't have a producer at that time.

Here comes the beat.

So, I talked with George Martin,
who produced The Beatles.

He was my idol. He was my hero.

Still to this day, I think,

is one of the greatest
producers that ever lived.

So Billy's looking for somebody
to produce the next album.

And George Martin comes to see us.

You got to open your eyes
in the morning

We were all excited. Oh, my God.

The Beatles producer's coming.
This is amazing.

Ain't no crime

So he watches the show.

Billy meets with them after and they talk,

and we say, "What did he say?
What did he say?"

And Billy looks at us and goes,
"He wants to produce me."

Great! That's great!

"But he doesn't want to use the band.
He wants to use studio guys."

We're like, "Oh, my God,
what did you tell him?"

I met with him, and he didn't want
to work with my band.

He was like, "Well, I'd like to work
with different musicians."

And I passed on working
with George Martin.

And Billy says,
"I told him, love me, love my band.

And I told him no."

As I wander through the world...

Love me, love my band.

Session guys are guys who can
come in and read the dots.

They can read the music,

but there's not necessarily a chemistry
within that ensemble,

which is very, very important.

You've got to have the chemistry.

We were k*lling it live.

Let me use my guys.

This was an amazing thing for someone
who was so focused on making it,

to know that the band

is such a part of what is happening here

that I can't lose them
just to get this guy

that produced the Beatles
to produce my records.

So the record company had
to be sitting there going,

wait a minute,
he fired the Caribou Management,

which was the biggest management company
there was at the time.

He fired Jimmy Guercio
from being his producer.

Now he doesn't want to work
with the Beatles producer,

George Martin,
and his wife is managing him?

So you've got to imagine
the little red pencil

went through my name.

That's it for him. That's it for this guy.

I was aware that if we didn't
have a big hit record,

I'd probably get dropped by the label.

We'd go to bed at night, and, you know,

we'd lie there just before
you'd fall asleep,

you'd think, oh,
I hope they don't drop us.

So it was stressful.

After "Streetlife" came out
and "Turnstiles" came out,

it looked like he was
in a very critical point

in his career,
because it could have just gone away.

But back in '76,
we had a base that was just his fans,

whether it was 1,500 seats, 2,000,

that was based on how good
he is as a live entertainer.

The road is the thing
that made him successful.

He got broken on the road.

I've never seen anybody since
that worked as hard as he did.

Dennis Arfa said,
"You guys shouldn't be opening up

for a bigger act.
You should be doing theaters."

When Billy decided that
he wanted to do Carnegie Hall

and they put those tickets up for sale
and instantly sold out,

they saw that if he could sell out
Carnegie Hall, there is something there.

And so Elizabeth,

she knew that Billy needed
a new producer for the next record,

and that's where Phil Ramone came in.

Phil Ramone was a staff producer

with Columbia Records.

Gentlemen, sorry, but we're going
to run it once more.

He was an engineer
early on in the pop music industry.

He worked with Sinatra.

He worked with Ray Charles.
He worked with Bob Dylan.

He worked with Paul Simon.
He worked with everybody, this guy.

So Elizabeth calls Phil Ramone and says,

"I want you to come see Billy
at Carnegie Hall."

And the lines were around the block.

And Billy saw this and said,
"This is really a big deal."

You sold it out three nights?

Yeah, three nights.

Did you get a special feeling
walking out on that stage?

Yeah, well, it's Carnegie Hall.

- Yeah.
- You walk backstage

and there's pictures of Tchaikovsky
and Rachmaninoff.

And, you know, you go to the bathroom,
and Liszt was on this can, you know.

I was a little awe-inspired
by the whole thing.

So we do a show at Carnegie Hall.
And Phil Ramone is in the audience

to come and see us.

And I remember, Billy,
he looked at me, he goes,

"Let's do it. 110%. Let's go for it."

And so it's time

To change our ways

But I've loved these days

Phil, he saw the audience go crazy.

He goes, "We've got to get this recorded."

Well, they're going to have
to drag me off this stage.

There's something magical
about the band and him.

And I felt we should capture that.

And that started it.
It started on that simplistic term.

For a musician,
eventually you find your family,

and you find the person
that can champion you

and get you what you need.

And, of course, with Billy,
that was Phil Ramone.

He goes,
"I want to take you guys in the studio

and I want you to be
the rock 'n' roll animals that you are."

Amazing. He loves us.

The first song we recorded
was "Movin' Out."

- Okay, here we go.
- One, two, three.

And when we came back in
to listen to the playback,

Phil had these gigantic speakers.

He used to play it so loud.

And you could hear it like,
oh, my God, that's so good.

Anthony works in the grocery store

Savin' his pennies for someday

Mama Leone left a note on the door

She said, "Sonny..."

I hit it off right away with Phil Ramone.
He was as crazy as we were.

It was like having another musician
behind the control board.

I'm movin' out

I'm movin' out

If the musicians are having fun,
you can hear it.

It wasn't smooth. It wasn't polished.
But it was unique.

Phil kind of liked that aspect of it.

He said, "It's kind of rough,
but that's your sound."

It felt great in here, man.
Come in here, Billy?

And he would point out things
that we weren't even aware of,

like when we did "The Stranger."

It starts off with
"The Stranger" theme. It goes...

And I'd whistle that.

And then I'd go into
the studio and ask Phil,

so what instrument should do that?

He says, "You just did it.

You whistled it."

I never even thought of that.

A whistle. Oh, okay.

And that's how
it ended up on the recording.

So stuff like that
would happen all the time.

Spontaneous things
that you don't really do

a lot of deep thinking about.

They just kind of happen naturally.

So I felt it was finally not
like pulling teeth to record.

It was chemistry.

We're both easily stimulated
by each other, you know,

and have a lot of fun
and are very straight ahead

about what the music is about.

And he trusted me.

This is a brand new song.

This is called
"Scenes from an Italian Restaurant."

And Phil, he got the concept
of "Scenes from an Italian Restaurant."

I always wanted to write
a cinematic type of song

about the lives of people
I knew in high school,

people who peaked too early.

A bottle of white

A bottle of red

It was actually three or four,
maybe five, song ideas

that I had not developed.

They were just fragments.

We'll get a table near the street...

Phil put together Billy's songs.

Billy would have three different ideas,

and Phil would say, "Let's put this here
and put this one here"

and create the arrangement
of the song and how it goes.

Brenda and Eddie
were the popular steadies

And the king and the queen of the prom

Riding around with the car
top down and the radio on

Nobody looked any finer

Or was more of a hit
at the Parkway Diner...

Billy's songs are built
like the Rock of Gibraltar.

They are simply
incredibly well put together.

And one of Billy's gifts was his ability
as the great storyteller.

Well, they got an apartment
with deep pile carpets

And a couple of paintings from Sears

A big water bed
they bought with the bread

They had saved for a couple of years

They started to fight
when the money got tight

And they just didn't count
on the tears

Whoa, whoa

People want to hear those stories
over and over again.

So his lyrical ability
was just a part of who he was

and where he came from.

And I think people relate to that.

Well, they lived for a
while in a very nice style

But it's always the same in the end

They got a divorce
as a matter of course...

So we figured out
a way to record this thing

where it was going to all flow together,

even the time signature
changes in the middle of it,

which is really difficult to get back
into the regular time.

Yeah, yeah, yeah

I would say there's a lot
of autobiographical stuff in my music.

One, two, three.

They say write what you know.

So I wrote what I knew.

A lot of the songs
were based on Elizabeth.

Don't go changing

To try and please me

You never let me down before

We were really short of a song.

Here comes this song.
And he said, "I don't like it.

"It's like a wedding song.
I'm not going to play this."

And I tell you, it was a battle.

And I don't see you anymore

- That part.
- It don't feel right.

If it don't feel right,
it ain't going to sound right.

Billy, if it feels uncomfortable,
just stay out of it. Just sing the song.

Just try it, I don't think it can hurt.

Phil Ramone was the one
who was pushing to have that song.

But it just didn't feel right to me.

It was too mushy.

Did you think that that particular song
was something special when you did it?

- It was okay. You know.
- What did--

what did it sound like?
Could you give a little bit

of what it would sound like? Just...

Well, we used to do it
in a different beat.

- Mm-hmm.
- And then Phil came in

and he said to Liberty DeVitto,

who's the drummer, he said,
"Why don't you play this backwards Samba?"

Liberty's going, "What's a Samba?"

You know, he's a rock and roll guy,
he didn't know from Samba.

Hey, Lib? You can play
a tom tom thing in there, you know?

You can hit the tom.

It's just creative in here too, you know.

And Phil said,
"How about boom, da doom cha."

Everybody with him.

So Liberty went, okay. Boom, da doom cha.

"Okay, that works."
And Phil Ramone came up with that.

Let's do it then.
One, two, three, four.

I said I love you

That's forever

And this I promise from the heart

Mm, mm, mm

I couldn't love you

Any better

I love you just the way you are

I heard the playback and went,

okay, it's a nice recording,
well-written song,

but I don't think
it should be on the album.

So Phil, he brings in a couple of people.

And they're listening to it
and they're looking at each other like...

And I came back into the control room.
I said, I don't know. What do you think?

"That's one of the best songs
we ever heard."

I said, I don't really want
to put it on the album.

"You're crazy!

That's got to be on the album.
It's a big hit."

I said, it is?

And it was Linda Ronstadt and Phoebe Snow.
And they were right.

I loved the music
before I ever heard a lyric.

But artists are artists, and they,
they take a little bit of this

and a little bit of that,
and they shake it together

and they make magic.

And magic struck with that song.

I just want someone

That I can talk to

I want you just the way you are

Ooh

When "The Stranger"
was finished and mastered,

we thought it was a masterpiece.
We were, like, thrilled.

It has hard rock.

It has soft rock.

It has love and sadomasochism.

And even has food.

"The Stranger."

The first time anybody
really heard the record

was at the listening party at CBS.

...tradin' in his Chevy

For a Cadillac ac-ac-ac-ac-ac...

Everyone goes south

...you just the way you...

...remember those days hangin' out

Slow down

Whoa, whoa, whoa

She takes care of herself

Oh

And the room was dead silent.

The first person that spoke up said,

"Well, you know, it's very nice,
but I don't hear any singles."

And so I said,
"Well, you better find a single

because we're not changing one note."

She can k*ll with a smile

She can wound with her eyes

Everything Billy wrote,
he would stand by.

And if the record company didn't like it,
he would still do it.

And she would fight for that.
Yeah, she would.

She hides like a child

But she's always a woman to me

They said they don't hear a single,
and she said, "You're wrong."

She's telling these people, the president
of Columbia Records, that they're wrong.

But she was very powerful. Always was.

Billy wasn't a schmoozer.
He did not want to play the game.

Elizabeth really had the street smarts,

the sensibilities, of dealing
with a corporate environment.

And she really never let

Billy fall off anybody's radar.

She can wait if she wants

She's ahead of her time

Elizabeth, she had to negotiate for Billy.

Had to be a babysitter for us.

Hey, Liberty!

Ah! Ah!

- Speak into the microphone.
- Hello?

- Is this on? Is this on?
- Yes.

You're talking to America right now.

- Hello, America.
- Put your lips right on it.

It was tough to hang around us.

It wasn't easy.

You know, doing donuts
in a car and driving it

into the lobby of a hotel
and ending up in jail.

I don't like this hotel. I don't like it.

They were, you know, basically, they were
a bunch of hooligans from Long Island.

You know, we were just this bunch
of twenty-something year-old guys.

Had no idea what we were doing.
And she molded us.

Fifteen minutes.

...in the cars in 15 minutes.

Okay.

With Billy and Elizabeth as the duo,
her real talent was understanding

how important it was for her

to be able to create a landing field

for this talent.

We'd never broken through
with a recording.

We needed, you know,
the backing of the record company

to help us break through.

And now was the time.
It was either now or never.

Elizabeth tells the president of CBS,

"You've gotta be crazy
not to hear a single on that."

Elizabeth says,
"You can pick the first single,

whatever you think,
as long as I can pick the second single."

He picks "Movin' Out."

If that's what it's all about, Mama...

Columbia released "Movin' Out,"
which did well, but not terribly well.

I'm movin' out

She picks "Just The Way You Are."

...we never could have come this far

Mm, mm

I took the good times

I'll take the bad times

I'll take you just the way you are

When I first heard Billy, it was like,

oh, wait a minute, he's good. Who's this?

You know, like you do, your ears prick up.

...some new fashion

Don't change the color of...

The song that really made me know

that that was happening
was "Just The Way You Are."

...unspoken passion

And where-- I get asked,

"Is there a song
that you wish you'd written?"

And I always--
That's the one I always say.

I don't want clever convers...

"Just The Way You Are,"

it was one of those songs
that changed the landscape.

And I remember we had

a programming director in Atlanta,
and he calls me up and he says,

"Hey, we just played this track,

'Just The Way You Are,'
and it's exploding."

I want you just the way you are

"Just The Way You Are" was on
in every station, heavy rotation, Top 40.

You couldn't stand the song
at the end of the time,

but we'd sold a million units.

I couldn't recognize a hit
if I stepped on it.

You know, I got to give her credit

because I didn't pick
"Just The Way You Are."

That is what put Billy over the top.

It took Billy from
three nights at Carnegie Hall

to three nights at Madison Square Garden.

And that's what happened
all around the world.

There were 105 performances that year

in different parts of the country,
different parts of the world.

It was intense.

After "The Stranger" album came out,

we went on the road,
and by the time we finished the tour,

we ended up playing
in these huge coliseums

and people were going, wahh!

And we're looking at each other like,

what's going on here?
We really didn't know.

And by the end of the tour, we,
I guess we knew it was a big album.

And then he wins two Grammys.

Okay, and the Song of the Year is...

The Record of the Year is...

"Just The Way You Are,"
Billy Joel, songwriter.

Billy Joel, "Just The Way You Are."

Phil Ramone, producer.

And then things really took off.

Out on Long Island
is having their reunion tonight.

And one alumnus will not be there
because he's here as my special guest.

Ladies and gentlemen, Billy Joel.

Come out, Virginia

Don't let me wait

You Catholic girls start much too late

Aw, but sooner or later
it comes down to fate

I might as well be the one...

"Only The Good Die Young,"
it was put out as a single.

But it ended up being banned
by the Catholic Church.

Billy Joel is a rock performer.

And though he may be popular,
a Catholic school has banned

a familiar song of his

because of its references
to Catholic girls.

...die young

And it wasn't selling all that well.

And then as soon as
they banned the sale of it,

kids went out in droves to buy this thing.

What can't we have?
What shouldn't we hear?

So I wrote a letter to
the Archdiocese of St. Louis

who banned it.

I said, please ban my next record

because, you know, I'm coming
out with a new single soon.

But that never hurt no one

So come on, Virginia show me a sign

Send up a signal
I'll throw you the line

The stained-glass curtain
you're hiding behind

Never lets in the sun

Darlin', only the good die young

That's what I said

Only the good die young

You got a nice white dress

And a party on your confirmation

Well, it turned out that
"The Stranger" became

the best-selling album
Columbia Records had ever put out,

which we had never conceived of.

...got enough information

I mean, we started off
in rent-a-cars and-and buses.

Now, you know, by the end,

it's private planes and whatever.

You feel the enormity
of the situation starting to grow.

After the arena shows started,

I saw how many people there were,
and that record was really hitting hard.

And it was exhilarating and exciting.

But, you know,
there was a bittersweet to it.

Because that's really the moment
I knew that we're going to lose him.

Like, this is going to change.
And things did change.

Before I started to be a manager,
I had no idea what I was getting in for.

And as much as Bill,
this is what he wanted,

this was his dream.

I don't think he ever imagined
what it would be like.

I wasn't used to being, like, a star.

As a matter of fact,
I wasn't all that comfortable with it.

And then I realized
after a while, well, you are.

So stop knocking yourself down.

You know, get used to it.

I guess when you talk about
widespread popularity for Billy Joel,

the record that did it
for him was "The Stranger."

The Stranger in 1977
sold well over five million copies.

His last album had five hit singles,

and no one's done that since The Beatles.

"The Stranger" was the album
that helped Billy Joel on his way

to becoming one of
the most successful artists

in the history of rock music.

I remember saying to Bill,
we just had a monster hit,

and now we need another monster hit.

The pressure was enormous.

But it was thrilling to see
his progression as an artist

who was now learning to hold
onto the reins of fame.

The fact that "The Stranger"
was as successful

as it was gave me the self-confidence.

I'm not going to pay any
attention to record company

executives, the music biz.

I'm going to write for me.

"52nd Street" was a very confident album.

I didn't want to repeat "The Stranger."
You can't stay in the same place.

You must grow.

And I was trying to think,
What's the theme of this album?

As I was writing it.

What is this album? Where are we?



Our studio where we recorded
was right on 52nd Street.

The street, 52nd Street, was a very
famous street at one time, you know.

In the '40s and the '50s,
it was called Swing Street.

And Charlie Parker had a club,

and every musician had
a jazz club on 52nd Street.

And we were sitting there,

what are we going to call this album?

Well, it's kind of got a New York flavor.
Let's call it "52nd Street."


in the history of music.

But when they were recording, you know,
the neighborhood was pretty grim.

In the late '70s,
there was a lot of crime.

A lot of drug problems.
The city was filthy.

They weren't picking up the garbage.
It was not a pleasant atmosphere.

But there was something
about it that was gritty.

Something that was real.

And we found that to be the theme.

And that's where we went.
We went into this kind of New York thing.

Okay, here we go.

It was done with a full band
and me singing live all in one shot.

I wanted that live energy
to be translated to a recording.

Well, you went uptown
ridin' in your limousine

With your fine Park Avenue clothes

You had the Dom Pérignon in your hand

And the spoon up your nose

Ooh, and when you
wake up in the morning

With your head on fire...

"Big Shot" was a hangover song.

I don't know how many times
I woke up in the morning

realizing I was an idiot the night before.

Felt like hell. Had a hangover.
And you looked in the mirror and you go,

you had to be a big shot, didn't you?

You had to open up your mouth
to be a big shot.

You had to be a big shot didn't you?

All your friends were so knocked out

I'm yelling at myself, you idiot!

Why do I feel so terrible?
Why? Because you drank too much.

I did a lot of my own research
for "Big Shot."

It's partly about me,
and it's partly about,

somebody else.

It's often been remarked
that that song is about me.

You know, just because I might
have worn a Halston dress

and, you know, the people

that I knew at Elaine's
and all that stuff.

Well, they were all impressed

With your Halston dress

And the people
that you knew at Elaine's

And the story of your latest success

Kept 'em so entertained

But in my opinion, that song is about him.

...you're not sure that you wanna know

We were just starting
to taste the good life

from whatever success that I had had.

We were new to it.

And "52nd Street"
turned out to be this huge,

constantly growing thing.

I think "52nd Street,"

any doubters that were left
in the business were gone.

You cannot argue
with the number one album.

And the album of the year is...

Envelope! Oh.

Ah, "52nd Street," Billy Joel.

Phil Ramone, producer.

After that Grammy,
there was no time off.

There was a world tour.

And my job as his manager,
you need to make sure

everybody shows up in the same place
on the same night,

and they're 100% ready to work.

There's nobody driving
the train if you do not have

a strong, efficient, effective manager.

In fact, some of my friends
called me The General.

You know, her management style,

she could be tough as an executive,
as a boss, as a manager.

We were friends,

and we had a lot of fun together,
but she was forceful when it came time

to make decisions
of what we were going to do.

With total respect to her...

I'm not going to say
that I was afraid of her,

but I was afraid of her.

I felt bad for people because
she had to crack the whip,

I suppose, and make things work

and make people do
what they're supposed to do.

I wasn't always comfortable
with her doing that.

But the truth is,
a lot of the things she did

were on my behalf.

Elizabeth never made a plan
that he didn't approve,

but being a woman,
Elizabeth had to be tough.

People would see that toughness
and misinterpret it.

If a man is strong and assertive,
it's all good.

But if you're a woman who makes a decision

that people don't like,
the gendered language comes out.

You know, some people got upset,

especially a lot of these macho guys

didn't like the idea
of some woman coming in

and telling them what had to happen.

And she got some bad mouthing about her.

Wouldn't have happened if she was a guy.

The hard part was
being married to the artist,

because if she had an idea
that he didn't want to do

and she thought it was a good idea,
that's a hard rub.

And by that point,
the boundaries were so loose

and crossed over,
and it just became clear to me that,

oh, this is tricky stuff.

And so I would like to talk about
one of my favorite songs of all time,

which is "Stiletto."

Now, what is that--
What does that rhythm imply?

To me, it kind of implied stabbing.

I don't know why.

Maybe it was the nature
of my relationship, at the time,

but I came up with these lyrics,

about being emasculated
by a relationship.

She cuts you once she cuts you...

It's kind of a nasty song.

Once the song was finished, I listened
back to it, I said, that's kind of heavy.

But it got written.

She cuts you once she cuts you twice

But still you believe

Although he has churned out
several tender tunes on the topic

of womanhood, he has been called sexist
because of songs like "Stiletto."

Sexist? The point of the song is okay,

the woman is a sadist,
but the guy's a masochist.

I don't think that's sexist.

Then she says she wants forgiveness

It's such a clever masquerade

Oh! She's so good with her stiletto...

If somebody's going to take shots
about him being misogynist,

I am living proof that he's not that.

I mean, he hired me,
way ahead of the curve,

to take care of his career
and what was most important to him.

Oh, she cuts you hard,
she cuts you deep

Oh, she's got so much skill

To me, it's another song
that is about a marriage.

And it's not just about our relationship,
but some of it was.

You've been left there to bleed

You wanna run away

But you know you're gonna stay

'Cause she gives you what you need

And sometimes with couples,
there are things that happen.

There's disloyalties.

And thinking, oh, yeah,
I'm going to say this,

and that's really going to get them going.

She's so good with her stiletto

I don't remember thinking,
this'll show her, this is about her.

And that's all I've got to say about that.

Oh, good God almighty...

Well, by the time we had finished
the "52nd Street" tour,

one of the things I realized
about arenas and coliseums

was you got to have the music
that works in those kind of venues.

I wanted an album of power pop

just to go bang, bang, bang, bang

to play in arenas.

It's been almost 15 years now

since Billy didn't graduate
from Hicksville High School.

He's moved into a modern
glass house on Long Island,

a stone's throw from
where he used to live.

...throw a rock through that window.

His picture window is on the cover
of his latest album, "Glass Houses."

And I was throwing a rock at my own image,

which was balladeer,
you know, singer-songwriter.

And I thought, we're going to
try something different here.

It's just a fantasy

Oh

It's not the real thing

Oh

It's just a fantasy

Oh

You are such a prisoner
of prizes you receive

Is that too poetic? Purple prose-y?

No, not really.
I think if you come out of it alright.

- If it comes out--
- And I am just a...

Working with Billy,
I got to see his process in the studio.

He would start by writing
a few rough ideas,

a verse here, a chorus there,

and stitch them together pretty quickly.

Everybody's waiting
for me to finish these songs.

It's like squeezing a lemon.

I remember we were cutting the album,
and it was pretty much done.

And then Billy came up with
"Still Rock and Roll to Me."

Well, I wrote the lyrics in the car
on the way into the studio.

I had an idea for a rhythmic pattern.

Dunk, gudunk, gudunk, gudunk,
gudunk, gudunk, gudunk, da da dun.

They came in, and they cut it.

And that's a simple song.

They lay it down, Billy doubles
some vocals, and it's over.

And I'm sitting there going,
this is the hit.

What's the matter

With the clothes I'm wearing?

Can't you tell
that your tie's too wide?

Well, maybe I should buy
some old tab collars?

Welcome back to the age of jive

Where have you been
hidin' out lately, honey?

You can't dress trashy

Till you spend a lot of money

Everybody's talkin'
'bout the new sound

Funny, but it's still
rock and roll to me

What's the matter with...

"Glass Houses" obliterated
everyone's expectations.

Billy Joel, "Glass Houses."

Are you gonna cruise a miracle mile?

That was the third hit
that Bill had had in a row.

And that really doesn't happen.

...cool punk, even if it's old junk

It's still rock and roll...

A lot of people think Billy Joel
is the best songwriter and performer

in the United States today.

In the past eight years,
Billy Joel has sold

more than 12 million albums,
won four Grammy Awards,

grossed more than $80 million dollars,
and sells out every concert performance.

Everybody's talkin'
'bout the new sound

Funny, but it's still rock
and roll to me

I think I was perceived as a balladeer

until we did that album.

And when we did the album,
there was a lot of criticism of,

"He's trying to be punk and new wave."

It was curious to me that he was,
you know, kind of a contrast

to what his music sounded like.

I mean, he was born in the Bronx
and grew up in Hicksville.

Was, you know, kind of a scrappy,
confrontational kid.

I mean, if it were a novel,

the next step would have been
to become a punk rocker.

But instead, his music was polished

and there was this underpinning
of accessibility.

And a lot of what was complex
and articulate about him

and his music was overlooked
because he was topping the charts.

When everything's going good,

I tend to worry about, okay,

when's the other shoe going to drop?

When is the end of this
great run going to happen?

Because it's going to happen.

You know, when you look at
Billy Joel's career,

he really hits the mainstream
in 1977 with "The Stranger."

And I think it's important
to remember, like,

what else was going on in the music world,
especially in the critical community.

There was a big embrace
of punk music at that time.

You know, 1977,
you have The Talking Heads.

Psycho k*ller qu'est-ce que c'est?

And Suicide.

Whoo!

And it's this very confrontational,
anti-authoritarian type music.

And it was very easy,
I think, to paint someone

like Billy Joel as the authority.

You know, he's with Columbia Records.

He's the biggest-selling artist
at that moment in time.

So I think Billy Joel
was a very convenient target

for, "This is everything
that we're against."

"You don't belong here.
You know, like, get out."

To this in Paul Nelson's review

of the album "Glass Houses"
in "Rolling Stone,"

"His material is catchy,
but then so is the flu."

"It's Still Rock and Roll to Me,"
your first American number one single,

named worst Rock 'n' Roll Single
of the Year by "Rolling Stone" Magazine.

With the critics,
a lot of it was self-inflicted.

I used to court battles with the press,

which was stupid.

What is it? You don't get
into a pissing contest

with someone who orders ink by the barrel.

One LA critic, who on this particular day
wrote that Billy Joel was

the great spoiled brat of rock.

Make way for the brat.

Okay, where's the Brat Room?

Billy always took things
personally, you know.

He used to review the reviewer.

He would read the review
that the reviewer gave,

and if it was a bad review,
he'd rip up the paper on stage.

So I ripped up the reviews.
I said this is what I think it's worth.

Now, it was a mistake to do that
because there could be five good reviews.

What did I pay attention to?
The one bad review.

But I had a chip on my shoulder.

I think the chip
on the shoulder thing comes

from being a Long Islander.

I got into fights,
and I had to learn how to defend myself.

I can't say there was ever a time
where I wasn't struggling with something.

There's always a struggle, to the end.

And so, I learned life is a fight.

And it was a good lesson to learn.

After "Glass Houses" came out,

I was always on the road.

Working, working.

I look back on that guy,
I don't even know who he was.

He had to be so ambitious
to work that hard and work that much.

So, it must've not been easy
to be married to me at the time.

The toll that fame and celebrity

was taking on everybody
was at this point palpable.

You know, everyone thinks
that fame is something special.

And there was a lot of nice things
about the life we had.

But, you know, the sense of humor
of the Gods is fantastic

because you get this,
and this is what you pay for it.

And living with someone
who is so firmly planted

in the public eye is the antithesis
of what I wanted.

I wasn't asking him to change,
but I just did not want to live like that.

My response to it was to
get a place in New York City

where you can enjoy anonymity.

And so it wasn't so much as we separated.

But we started to get a little bit
isolated from one another.

And I also knew that he wasn't
in a good place.

We were all under a lot of stress.

All of us dealt with our stresses
in different ways.

And so there was, you know,
a lot, a lot of alcohol use.

And eventually, a lot of drug use.

Elizabeth was concerned
about everybody's drinking,

but she was really concerned
about Billy's drinking.

She realized that there was
some alcoholism in this group.

Billy, like the rest of us,
we were very destructive to ourselves.

It was our second career.

You know, we used to go out to dinners,

and if anybody left drinks
as I was walking out,

I would just drink everybody's drink
no matter what it was on the way out.

We loved our alcohol.

I don't think that he was unaware
of the damage he was doing to himself.

But as you become a superstar,
the pressure doesn't abate.

And then you've got to keep beating
and doing better than your last album.

And it's very hard to deal
with that kind of pressure.

You know,
I remember telling band members,

I can't stand watching
my friend k*ll himself.

It's my whole world right here,
and it's crumbling.

I remember Elizabeth
came on the road with us.

She was uncomfortable being there.
I was uncomfortable with her being there.

The band was uncomfortable.
It was uncomfortable for everybody.

And there was more fighting

and more negativity
than there was fun.

The fun was gone.

It was just out of control
in a way that I was, I was frightened.

My life was so different
than the band and the crew

because I had a child,
and I was not going to do anything

that would hurt him,
leave him without a mother.

I was a very young user
of drugs and alcohol.

I was going down the very same roads

that all those guys were,
'cause I looked up to them.

I think she kind of saw, like,
I gotta get out for this kid.

That was my guiding force
and my guiding light.

And so it became
an insurmountable reality.

And then I kind of decided,

I'm going to step back
from this business of music.

She didn't want anybody
to try to talk her into staying.

She just wanted to go away.

I started to interview candidates
to take my place.

And then Bill gets this idea in his head
that he wants to hire Frank Weber,

who is my brother.

At family events,
they always talked to each other.

And I was like,
I understand you like him,

Frank's a nice guy, but I don't see it.

Frank started working at Home Run.

Must have been '77, '78.

Eventually, I became
more familiar with Frank,

and we ended up discussing
more about the business,

and he represented himself
to be pretty straight ahead

and understanding my point
of view about things.

I didn't like it for a myriad of reasons,

but Bill wanted Frank
and that's who we hired.

Warm tears...

Elizabeth and Billy,

they were still very involved
with each other.

Their lives were completely,
totally mixed.

But the drinking was a very big problem.
Every day, Elizabeth kept saying,

you know, "Tomorrow is
the day he's going to stop."

I think he was so
constrained in his own life

that he was pushing the envelope
in the places that he could.

Hey

Come on

I always romanticized motorcycles.

There's something about it.

I feel like I could be
completely disconnected from the world.

There's a sense of freedom about that.

But I just remember hearing,

"The insurance company doesn't want you

"to ride motorcycles,

and the record company doesn't want you
to ride motorcycles."

And I was like, f*ck them.

...sleeping with the television on

You getting this? You gotta get this, man.
This is the thing.

So, when Bill had a motorcycle,
I was hearing he was in this place

or he'd been drinking here
and he was going there.

And so I was scared all the time.

I, on many occasions, said to him,

you know, you can't do this.
This is dangerous.

One, two, three, four!

"You May Be Right," I wrote that

one night, it was four o'clock
in the morning.

I was coming back from a bar.
It was raining out. I was on a bike.

I had no headlight.
There were no street lights.

I was wearing a suit, and it was raining.
And I got into the house,

and I made it home in one piece.

I should have been splattered
all over the road.

And my wife looked at me and she said,

"You're out of your mind. You're crazy.
I don't believe you're alive." I said,

"Well, I made it, didn't I?
I'm here in one piece."

And she said,
"Yeah, but that only proves you're crazy,

because only a crazy man
would have made it home."

And that's where I got the idea from.

Even rode my motorcycle in the rain

And you told me not to drive

But I made it home alive

So you said that only proves

That I'm insane

You may be right

And there was a line that's like,

"Turn out the lights.
Don't try to save me."

You know, really,
to me at that time, really said it all.

Well, turn out the lights

Don't try to save me

You may be wrong for all I know

But you may be right

Elizabeth had warned me.

"Just be careful, be careful.
Because you're going to have an accident."

And I was riding with a couple
of other people on other bikes,

and we got to an intersection,
and the light turned green for me,

so I went through the intersection.

But a woman had run a red, red light

and crossed right in front of me.

It was too late to stop the bike.

I was wearing a helmet
and boots and gloves

and a leather jacket.

I smashed into her car.

The bike went like that.
It dislocated this wrist.

It yanked my wrist out of my socket

and crushed this thumb against the tank.

So this thumb got smashed.
And I flipped over the car.

I landed on my back.
Hit the helmet on the pavement. Kaboom.

I was amazed that I was still alive.
I should have died in that accident.

And I laid there in shock
for a couple of minutes,

and I went to the hospital
right after that.

He gets into the hospital.
They immediately take him into surgery,

and nobody knew the extent of the damage.

It was a great concern.

They only knew that it was very serious
and that it was his hands and his head.

You know, everybody standing around going,
oh, my God, what's going to happen?

Didn't know if he'd ever
be able to play music again.

This arm was broken, this leg was broken,
this wrist was broken.

And I think a lot of the time
that I was in that hospital,

I wasn't aware of what was going on.

I was just out of it.

I was in the room every day
while he was in the hospital.

Dealt with the press.
Whatever had to be done.

One day, Elizabeth comes in
and he overhears her telling me

that I should hire private nurses
to go home with him.

And he says to her...

"Well, aren't you going to be there?"

She says...

"I'm not going back with you.
I live in the city."

I would've stayed.

I would've been able,
like so many women before me,

to make that accommodation
for someone you love.

But there was no way that I could stand by
and watch him k*ll himself.

I just didn't have that in me.

And I felt very strongly
that that's where it was going.

She slipped the key to the house

off of her keychain
and put it on the tray,

that hospital tray that goes over the bed.

I remember him looking at that key.

She was his muse.
And he made some comment about,

"She's not going to be there
to hear my music anymore."

It wasn't going to work
as much as I wanted it to.

I didn't want to fail.

Billy, I sometimes say,
even with his amazing talent,

without her know-how,
he might not be Billy Joel.

And Elizabeth, with all of her brilliance,

if she had represented
somebody with no talent,

you know, what was the point?

And they did love each other

because they more
or less grew up together.

They matured from teenage years
to young adulthood.

And I said, you know,

someday they may write about us.

And I hope that they say
that we really did something.

And his rejoinder was,

"I hope they could say
we went all the way."

And that was, that was it.
That really was the final...

That was it.

Yeah. That was the end.

It was sad.

When they split up, when it was over,
I don't think there was a,

"Hey, I'm really going to miss you.
Good luck."

Yeah, there was no closure with Billy.

But I think if he could
communicate about feelings,

I don't know whether he would be able

to create the songs
and the feelings that they all convey.

And that's where I have to look and go,

alright, whatever he didn't do,
whatever his shortcomings were,

he did do that.

And that's powerful.
That's-- that moves people.

I still have room in my heart.

I love Bill. I always will.

I love the memories of the family life
that he and Sean and I shared.

And so those memories are personal,

and they belong to me
and to Sean and to Bill.

But what doesn't belong to us
is the achievement

that we had working together.

We together were greater
than the sum of the parts.

And I am really proud of that.

I've had a lot of hard lessons in my life.

Break all the records

Burn the cassettes

I'd be lying if I told you

That I had no regrets

There were so many mistakes

And what a difference it makes

But still it shouldn't
surprise you at all

You know

I've realized that life
doesn't always have a happy ending.

I was alone again...

and going into the unknown.

You were so young and naive

I know it's hard to believe

But now it shouldn't
surprise you at all

You know

No, it shouldn't surprise you at all

You know

Ali dances and the audience applauds

Though he's bathed in sweat

He hasn't lost his style

Ali, don't you go downtown

You gave away another round for free

Whoa

Me, I'm just another face at Zanzibar

But the waitress always
serves a secret smile

Whoa

She's waiting out in Shantytown

She's gonna pull
the curtains down for me

For me

I've got the old man's car

I've got a jazz guitar

I've got a tab at Zanzibar

Tonight, that's where

I'll be

I'll be