November 2, 1973: "Piano Man" by Billy Joel is released as a single. The album of the same title is released 7 days later. The single was not a big hit, only reaching Number 25 on Billboard magazine's Hot 100 chart early in 1974. But it launched Billy's career.
After the failure of his debut album, Cold Spring Harbor, in 1971, Billy stayed in Los Angeles where he'd recorded it, and got a job playing piano at the Executive Room, a bar at 3953 Wilshire Boulevard, on the West Side of Los Angeles. For legal reasons, he couldn't perform under his real name, so William Martin Joel became "Bill Martin." (He couldn't be "Billy Martin," because of the baseball team manager of that name.) Everybody in the song was a real person, including Billy's 1st wife, Elizabeth Weber, who also worked there: "And the waitress is practicing politics."
When legal matters were resolved, and Billy and Columbia Records were finally able to join forces, he recorded the song, and it came out at 5 minutes and 38 seconds. Just 8 years after Bob Dylan, also a Columbia performer, topped 6 minutes with "Like a Rolling Stone," Columbia (owned by CBS) kept the full length for the album version; but, for the single version, cut the 2nd half of the 2nd verse and the 1st half of the 3rd verse: John the bartender made the final cut, but not his belief that he could be a movie star; nor did Paul the real-estate agent and novelist, nor Davey who was still in the Navy. FM stations, the ones that would later rebrand as "classic rock," tended to play the full-length version from the album.
And a promotional version of the single was cut even further. So when Billy recorded his next album, Streetlife Serenade, it included "The Entertainer," in which he sang, "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 gonna have a hit, you gotta make it fit.' So they cut it down to 3:05."
Of course, Billy sings it in full at every show, including the 100-plus times he's sold Madison Square Garden out. He sang it at the 1st rock concert at the old Yankee Stadium in 1990. He sang it at the last concert at Shea Stadium in 2008.
During the 2015 World Series, he sang the National Anthem before one of the Citi Field games. As they usually do, the Mets played "Piano Man" in the middle of the 8th inning, and everybody sang along, and a camera was put on Billy -- who, being a Yankee Fan, felt out of place, anyway, as in, "Man, what are you doing here?" -- and the look on his face said, "People, this is not a happy singalong song." It could be worse: At the same point in their home games, the Boston Red Sox use Neil Diamond's "Sweet Caroline."
In 2011, deciding that those people didn't deserve to be left hanging, I wrote an unofficial sequel for the song-parody website Amiright.com. Billy goes back (in real life, he can't, as the place closed years ago), and the old man is still there, and remembers that the song he couldn't quite recall was "I Only Have Eyes for You."
In my version, John now owns the bar, able to buy it because Billy made the place famous. Paul is a best-selling novelist, who leaves the real estate to his wife. Davey went to SEAL training and killed Osama bin Laden. The waitress went back home, and her political practice paid off: She was elected Mayor. The piano is still there, and it's kept in tune. The microphone, of course, still smells like a beer.
UPDATE: It took me until 2024 to think of this, but the 1970s were Schrödinger's Decade. There was too much overwrought music, and, at the same time, not enough of it.
In 2025, I read a theory that the bar in the song was a gay bar, and Billy didn't know. The evidence isn't conclusive, but it is interesting.
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November 2, 1973 was -- no, not a Saturday -- a Friday. Baseball was in the off-season. Football was in midweek. This was the opening night of the 1973-74 NBA season, and 7 games were played:
* The New York Knicks beat the Los Angeles Lakers, 106-91 at The Forum outside Los Angeles in Ingelwood, California.
* The Boston Celtics beat the Golden State Warriors, 108-105 at the Boston Garden.
* The Milwaukee Bucks beat the Cleveland Cavaliers, 118-100 at the Cleveland Arena. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar scored 35 points and grabbed 16 rebounds.
* The Detroit Pistons beat the Phoenix Suns, 114-107 at Cobo Hall (now Huntington Place) in Detroit.
* The Chicago Bulls beat the Buffalo Braves, 107-97 at the Chicago Stadium.
* The Seattle SuperSonics beat the Kansas City-Omaha Kings, 115-109 at the Kansas City Municipal Auditorium.
* And the Atlanta Hawks beat the Houston Rockets, 125-123 at the Hofheinz Pavilion (now the Fertitta Center) in Houston.
And there were 5 games played in the American Basketball Association:
* The New York Nets lost to the Kentucky Colonels, 121-109 at the Nassau Coliseum.
* The Virginia Squires beat the Memphis Tams, 110-108 at The Scope in Norfolk.
* The Carolina Cougars beat the San Antonio Spurs, 117-106 at the Greensboro Coliseum.
* The Indiana Packers beat the Denver Rockets, 107-103 in overtime at the Indiana State Fair Coliseum in Indianapolis. The Rockets became the Denver Nuggets the next season. The arena is now named the Corteva Coliseum.
* And the Utah Stars beat the San Diego Conquistadors, 126-110 at the Salt Palace in Salt Lake City. "The Q's" were coached by Wilt Chamberlain, in his 1 and only season as a professional basketball coach, at any level. He wanted to play for them, but an injunction prevented him from playing -- though not from coaching -- for any team but the Lakers, who still held his playing rights. That contract ran out at the end of the 1973-74 season, but Wilt decided he was done with the NBA.
There was only 1 game played in the NHL that night: The St. Louis Blues beat the Vancouver Canucks, 3-1 at the Pacific Coliseum in Denver. There were 3 games in the World Hockey Association:
* The New York Golden Blades lost to the Winnipeg Jets, 3-1 at the Winnipeg Arena. On November 21, the Golden Blades moved to the Philadelphia suburb of Cherry Hill, New Jersey, and became known as the Jersey Knights. They folded at the end of the season.
* The Minnesota Fighting Saints beat the Los Angeles Sharks, 5-1 at the Los Angeles Memorial Sports Arena.
* And the Edmonton Oilers beat the Quebec Nordiques, 5-4 at the Edmonton Gardens.
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