Thursday December 3, 2020 “Scenes from an Italian Restaurant” Billy Joel

Brenda and Eddie (no relation) were still going steady in the summer of ‘75.

Billy Joel is another master teller of musical stories.   This one happens to be pretty detailed and he has also listed this among his own personal favorites.  One of the best selling artists of all time Joel like most successful musicians has a residency at a popular venue that he regularly plays at, except for him it’s not some intimate club but rather Madison Square Garden where he has played one hundred sold out shows.

Joel was born in the Bronx but raised in Oyster Bay on Long Island.  His father was a classically trained pianist and Joel began taking piano lessons at age four and attended Hicksville High School but did not graduate.  He said, and I quote, ”If I'm not going to Columbia University, I'm going to Columbia Records, and you don't need a high school diploma over there'."  He would ultimately record with Columbia Records so who needs a university, or even a high school diploma?  But if you forgo any of those it helps to be a super talented songwriter and musician.

Rumor has it that at age sixteen Joel played on the Shangri-La’s hit “Walking in the Sand” and like so many young musicians of that era he said that when he saw the Beatles on the Ed Sullivan Show he knew that’s who he wanted to be.

A successful boxer as a youth, he had twenty two Golden Glove wins, so I guess just like Superman’s cape, you don’t mess around with Billy.  He quit boxing when his nose got broken otherwise you might not be listening to this song today.

Stay safe and well...and get your bottle of white or your bottle of red, maybe a rose instead for this (long) story song. Also this is a live,younger version with an amazing band, and maybe it will end differently for Brenda and Eddie (still no relation) this time.  

A bottle of white, a bottle of red

Perhaps a bottle of rose instead

We'll get a table near the street

In our old familiar place

You and I, face to face

 A bottle of red, a bottle of white

It all depends upon your appetite

I'll meet you any time you want

In our Italian Restaurant

 Things are okay with me these days

Got a good job, got a good office

Got a new wife, got a new life

And the family's fine

We lost touch long ago

You lost weight I did not know

You could ever look so nice after

So much time

 Do you remember those days hanging out

At the village green

Engineer boots, leather jackets

And tight blue jeans

Drop a dime in the box play the

Song about New Orleans

Cold beer, hot lights

My sweet romantic teenage nights

 Brenda and Eddie were the

Popular steadys

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

We never knew we could want more

Than that out of life

Surely Brenda and Eddie would

Always know how to survive

 Brenda and Eddie were still going

Steady in the summer of '75

When they decided the marriage would

Be at the end of July

Everyone said they were crazy

Brenda you know you're much too lazy

Eddie could never afford to live that

Kind of life

But there we were wavin' Brenda and

Eddie goodbye

 They got an apartment with deep

Pile carpet

And a couple of paintings from Sears

A big waterbed that 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

 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

And they parted the closest

Of friends

Then the king and the queen went

Back to the green

But you can never go back

There again

 Brenda and Eddie had had it

Already by the summer of '75

From the high to the low to

The end of the show

For the rest of their lives

They couldn't go back to

The greasers

The best they could do was

Pick up the pieces

We always knew they would both

Find a way to get by

That's all I heard about

Brenda and Eddie

Can't tell you more than I

Told you already

And here we are wavin' Brenda

And Eddie goodbye

 A bottle of red, a bottle of white

Whatever kind of mood you're in tonight

I'll meet you anytime you want

In our Italian Restaurant