Piano Man

"Piano Man" is a fictionalized retelling of the six months in 1972 and 1973 that Joel spent as a lounge singer and pianist at the Executive Room, a bar in the Wilshire district of Los Angeles. He had left New York to get away from Family Productions, and he worked there as Bill Martin while Columbia's lawyers tried to free him from the deal. Joel has said the characters in the song were based on real people. They include John the bartender, Paul, a real estate novelist, and Davy, a naval serviceman. He observed that the five-line groups in the lyrics make it closer to a limerick than a poem.

It is a waltz, and the sheet music is in C major, though Joel now sings it in B-flat major. The 1973 recording features piano, harmonica, bass, acoustic guitar, accordion, mandolin and drums. Credits include Larry Carlton, Richard Bennett and Dean Parks on guitar, Wilton Felder on bass, Michael Omartian on accordion and Ron Tutt on drums. The single is 4:30 and the album track runs 5:37.

The single peaked at number 25 on the Hot 100 in April 1974, his first Top 40 hit, and number 10 in Canada. It stayed a moderate hit until the success of The Stranger, after which it became one of his best-loved songs. Cash Box compared it to Harry Chapin. Stevie Chick of the Guardian described it as a dark twist on the theme to Cheers, as sentimental as it is sharp. The Grammy Hall of Fame inducted it in 2013, and the Library of Congress selected it for the National Recording Registry in 2015. When the CBS broadcast of Joel's 100th Madison Square Garden concert on 14 April 2024 cut away from the song to local news, the network blamed a timing error and broadcast the show again on 19 April.