The Piano Men Songs

Piano Man

"Piano Man" is based on Joel's real-life experiences as a lounge musician in Los Angeles from 1972 to 1973, which he had decided to pursue in an effort to escape his contracted New York City–based record company at the time, Family Productions, following the poor commercial performance of his debut album.

Since he needed work to pay the bills, but could not use his common name, he worked as a piano-lounge singer for six months in 1972–73 at the now defunct Executive Room bar as a piano player using the name "Bill Martin" (Joel's full name is William Martin Joel).

Joel has observed that, with their five-line grouping, the lyrics  were more in the form of a limerick than a typical poem.

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I'm Still Standing

One hit single that emerged from the legendary partnership between Elton John and Bernie Taupin is the synthpop-y “I’m Still Standing.”

The meaning of the lyrics on the 1983 track tells the story of a lover moving on after a breakup. The ingenuity of these verses lies in their simultaneous universality and intimate feeling.

“It’s perhaps one more example of the original idea being interpreted by everyone into something quite different,” Taupin said in a statement about the song. “I think people see it as an anthem based on Elton’s strong sense of survival in the face of adversity. Which, believe me, is perfectly fine by me.

“In fact, it’s probably infinitely more interesting, perhaps, than what it was initially written about. Which, if my memory serves me correctly, it was a sort of kiss-off to an old girlfriend. You know the sort of thing, ‘Don’t you worry about me, I’ll be perfectly fine.’ 

It's Still Rock and Roll To Me

"It's Still Rock and Roll to Me" is a song written and performed by Billy Joel, from the hit album Glass Houses, released in 1980.

The song conveys Joel's criticisms of the music industry and press, commenting on new musical styles of the time such as new wave being mere rehashes of older musical styles. It also addresses changing trends and attitudes of the era.

Joel wrote the song in response to critics who often described his music as adult contemporary, middle-of-the-road pop. He felt that new styles of music were not unlike older styles of music (regardless of marketing). 

He laid out his arguments in the song’s lyrics, which ridiculed obsession with style over music. But he also made his point with the arrangement, which copies the New Wave style he’d outlined, before it leaps into a classic rock ’n’ roll vibe.

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She's Got A Way

The lyrics to "She's Got a Way" have the singer describing how various characteristics of a particular woman, such as her laugh, make him love her, even though he can't understand why.

"She's Got A Way" is a simple, elegant, and straightforward ballad.  The sincerity and earnestness in the lyrics and in Billy's voice are palpable.  He adores the woman he is singing about, she has a smile that heals, a way about her.  Billy was just 22 when "She's Got A Way" was recorded and he sounds very young, even naive (though one must remember that the original version of the song was recorded at the wrong speed, making Billy's voice seem much higher).  

Honesty

"Honesty" is a piano ballad with synthesizer embellishments.

It opens with "sad and tender" piano chords. According to Ken Bielen in his book The Words and Music of Billy Joel, Liberty DeVitto's drums and cymbal crashes, remind listeners that "the track is a predecessor of the power ballads of the 1980s and 1990s".  It talks about the inherent lack of honesty even in the closest of relationships. In the song Joel sings the lines "Honesty is such a lonely word". Joel further sings about wearing his heart on his sleeve in "Honesty".

According to Ken Bielen, "'Honesty' is a plea for truth, not only in romantic relationships but also from the politicians who affect our lives.”

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Just The Way You Are

Billy Joel owes much of his international acclaim to his hit song “Just The Way You Are.” Featuring on his fifth studio album ‘The Stranger’ released in 1977. “Just The Way You Are” captured the hearts of fans worldwide and quickly became one of Joel’s most notable songs. It was a huge commercial success, reaching the US Top 10 and UK Top 20 singles charts.

In the recording studio, Linda Ronstadt told Joel, “That’s one of the greatest songs I’ve ever heard,”.  Many agreed with this, including the Recording Academy, which gave Joel the Grammys for Song and Record of the Year in 1979. Even former Beatle Paul McCartney admitted in the ‘Club Sandwich’ in 1994 that it was a track he admired and wished he had written it himself.

The beautiful, almost water-like melody of the Rhodes performed by Joel is present throughout this iconic song. “Just The Way You Are” was intentionally a loving tribute written for his first wife for her birthday.

I Just Can't Wait To Be King

In Disney's hit animated classic, The Lion King, Simba is a young lion prince who is eager to take his place as King of the Jungle and boss everyone around. As he and his best friend, Nala, set out on a secret journey to the elephant graveyard – a trap set by Simba's power-hungry Uncle Scar - Simba bursts into song, proclaiming, "I just can't wait to be king!", a song written by Elton John (music) and Tim Rice (lyrics) in 1994.

Famed lyricist Tim Rice wrote the lyrics to Elton John's music. "Basically, I was just thinking of children playing games," Rice told Vulture. "Whatever they say has to be plausible. We knew the song was sung by a lion cub, so it had to be innocent, boppy, and poppy. It's a light-hearted thing for kids to sing."

The song is "an ode to youthful arrogance, invincibility, and above all, impatience"

Your Song

"Your Song" is a song written by musician Elton John and lyricist Bernie Taupin in 1969. The lyrics express the romantic thoughts of an innocent person. 

Elton has said that this song is not about anyone in particular, and Taupin has refused to reveal the identity of the person, if they even exist. He told Rolling Stone: "I always thought 'Your Song' was written about one of his girlfriends, and when I asked him that, he just said, 'No it wasn't!' He gets fairly defensive."

He told Music Connection in 1989: "It's like the perennial ballad 'Your Song,' which has got to be one of the most naïve and childish lyrics in the entire repertoire of music, but I think the reason it still stands up is because it was real at the time.

"That was exactly what I was feeling. I was 17 years old and it was coming from someone whose outlook on love or experience with love was totally new and naïve."

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Uptown Girl

Billy Joel scored a massive hit around the world with the pop anthem 'Uptown Girl' in 1983, and it remains one of his most popular and enduring songs.

According to an interview with Howard Stern, Joel had originally titled the song "Uptown Girls", and it was conceived on an occasion when he was surrounded by Christie Brinkley, Whitney Houston, and his then-girlfriend Elle Macpherson. According to numerous interviews with Joel, the song was initially written about his relationship with Macpherson, but it ended up also becoming about his soon-to-be wife, Brinkley, both women being two of the most famous supermodels of the 1980s. Joel said that the song was inspired by the music of Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons.

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Sorry Seems To Be The Hardest Word

"Sorry Seems to Be the Hardest Word" is a mournful ballad about a romantic relationship that is falling apart. Bernie Taupin said: "It's a pretty simple idea, but one that I think everyone can relate to at one point or another in their life. That whole idealistic feeling people get when they want to save something from dying when they basically know deep down inside that it's already dead. It's that heartbreaking, sickening part of love that you wouldn't wish on anyone if you didn't know that it's inevitable that they're going to experience it one day."

Elton John began writing the song in 1975 in Los Angeles. Whilst many of his songs involved Taupin writing lyrics first, then John writing the music later, John wrote the melody and most of the lyrics for "Sorry Seems to Be the Hardest Word", and Taupin completed it afterwards. John explained: "I was sitting there and out it came, 'What have I got to do to make you love me.'"

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Cold Cold Heart (Sacrifice)

"Sacrifice" is a song by British musician Elton John, written by John and Bernie Taupin, from John's 22nd studio album, Sleeping with the Past (1989). The song describes how hard it is to stay faithful and devoted in a marriage, challenging the mantra that a successful union requires sacrifice.

Due to the outbreak of the pandemic of COVID-19, John was compelled to temporarily halt his Farewell Yellow Brick Road world tour in March 2020. Amidst the lockdown caused by the pandemic, the singer pursued a series of collaborations, one of which was "Cold Heart (Pnau remix)" with Lipa, as part of his upcoming studio album.

"Cold Heart (Pnau remix)" is a song by English singer and songwriter Elton John and English and Albanian singer Dua Lipa

"Cold Heart (Pnau remix)" was met with a warm reception from music critics, with many complimenting the combination of John's previous hits in the song.

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Tiny Dancer

"Tiny Dancer" is a song written by English musician and composer Elton John and lyricist Bernie Taupin, and performed by John.

The song was first featured as the opening track to John's 1971 album, Madman Across the Water. The song's lyrics were inspired by Taupin's first visit to the US in 1970, and were intended to capture the spirit of California, where he found the women he met highly contrasted with those whom he had known in his home country of England. Taupin also stated in a 1973 interview in Rolling Stone that the song is about Maxine Feibelman, his wife at the time.

In 2019, Feibelman said, "I knew [the song] was about me. I had been into ballet as a little girl and sewed patches on Elton's jackets and jeans", referring to the song's description of a "seamstress for the band".

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Candle In The Wind

"Candle in the Wind" is a threnody-style ballad written by English musician Elton John and songwriter Bernie Taupin, and performed by John. It was originally written in 1973, in honour of Marilyn Monroe, who had died 11 years earlier.

The song's opening line "Goodbye, Norma Jean" refers to Monroe's real name, Norma Jeane (more commonly spelled Jean) Baker. Taupin was inspired to write the lyrics after hearing the phrase "candle in the wind" used by Clive Davis in tribute to Janis Joplin: "I just kept hearing this term [and] I thought, what a great way of describing someone’s life".

"Candle in the Wind 1997" or "Goodbye England's Rose" was a new recording of "Candle in the Wind", with new lyrics, written and recorded as a tribute to Diana, Princess of Wales who had died in an auto crash on 31 August 1997.

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Can You Feel The Love Tonight

"Can You Feel the Love Tonight" is a song from Disney's 1994 animated feature film The Lion King composed by English musician Elton John with lyrics by Tim Rice.

Paul Jarvey from Telegram & Gazette wrote, "Although it's a simple song about the young cubs Simba and Nala, the tune advances the plot. The two cubs start as playful buddies. A spark of romance flashes when they meet later as full grown lions. The song defines the feelings of the two lions while indicating that changes may be in store for them and other animals in the kingdom."

It was planned to be sung only by Timon and Pumbaa, but John disliked the comical nature of the concept as he declared that the song was meant to follow "Disney's tradition of great love songs", and that it could "express the lions' feelings for each other far better than dialogue could".

Tell Her About It

"Tell Her About It" is a song written and performed by Billy Joel from his album An Innocent Man (1983), released as the album's first single in 1983. In the song, the singer exhorts a young man to tell the woman he loves how he feels about her before he misses his chance. 

As he was crafting the LP, Joel started dating Brinkley, one of the most famous models in the world at the time. Their romance would have a profound effect on An Innocent Man, inspiring several of the album’s songs, including “Tell Her About It,” which Joel wrote after he realized he could talk to Brinkley for hours about everything and nothing at all.
 

Joel began thinking about the Motown group behind such timeless hits as “Baby Love,” “Come See About Me” and “Stop! In the Name of Love.” “They had a million hits, the Supremes. And they were always giving advice to girls [in their lyrics],” Joel explained. “And I thought, ‘All right, I’m gonna write a song like that. And I’m gonna be Diana Ross.’”

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River Of Dreams

“River of Dreams” is the twelfth studio album by American singer-songwriter Billy Joel, released on August 10, 1993. River of Dreams presented a more serious tone than found in Joel's previous albums, dealing with issues such as trust and long-lasting love.

The album cover was a painting by Joel's then-wife, Christie Brinkley. In 1993, Rolling Stone gave her the Top Picks award for "The Best Album Cover of the Year".

The same cover, in 2024, was named one of the worst 50 album covers of all time by Rolling Stone.

In a 2018 interview with Vulture, Joel expressed disappointment that the album did not yield any hit singles beyond the title track. He further attributed his decision to stop releasing pop albums to the lack of airplay. "The thing was, I put a lot of work into River of Dreams and it was as if the business had left me behind because there are substantial songs on that album that never went anywhere."

And So It Goes

"And So It Goes" is a song written by Billy Joel in 1983, though it was not released until six years later. It appeared as the tenth and final track of his 1989 studio album Storm Front. The original 1983 demo was released on the 2005 box set My Lives. Joel wrote the song about a doomed relationship with model Elle Macpherson. Due to their 15-year age difference, their relationship was dramatic. In 1983, Macpherson was about 19 years old while Joel was around 34. Joel dated Macpherson for only a brief time, and shortly after became involved with model Christie Brinkley. She ultimately became his second wife in 1985.

The song was inspired by the Scottish ballad "Barbara Allen", and is unique for Joel as it is written in iambic tetrameter. In the original demo version of "And So It Goes," Joel sings the melody simply, accompanied by a simple piano.

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She's Always A Woman

“She's Always a Woman" is a song by Billy Joel from his 1977 album, The Stranger.

It is a love song about a woman whom the singer has fallen totally in love with to the extent of falling for her endearing quirks as well as her flaws.

Joel wrote the song for his then-wife, Elizabeth Weber, who had taken over management of Joel's career, and was able to put his financial affairs in order after Joel had signed some bad deals and contracts. Joel said of the song's depiction of Weber, "Yes, she can be difficult, she can be confounding, she can be impossible, but she's obviously a better businessperson than you are." The two eventually divorced in 1982.

Joel has said that he was influenced by Gordon Lightfoot and his mellow acoustic guitar ballads. He stated in an interview that he was attempting to replicate the fingerpicking common in folk guitar music. He accomplishes this by playing arpeggiated triads in the right hand. He also notes that the production was purposely minimal to capture the purity of the tune as a folk song.

Don't Go Breaking My Heart

"Don't Go Breaking My Heart" is a duet by English musician Elton John and English singer Kiki Dee, released by The Rocket Record Company on 25 June 1976.

Elton uncommonly came up with the title himself whilst creating the tune at Eastern Sound Studios in Toronto, Canada. He then called Bernie, who was not at the Blue Moves sessions during which this song was recorded, and asked for a lyric to go with that title.

The original lyrics Bernie wrote had very little to do with the final version – only one line (and the title) remains in the song we know today.

Don’t Go Breaking My Heart was Elton’s third stand-alone single.

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It's All About Soul

"All About Soul" is a song by American musician Billy Joel, released in October 1993 by Columbia Records as the third single from his 12th studio album, River of Dreams.

 "All About Soul" espouses the importance of devotion and strength in a relationship.  Love is important (so is honesty and trust), but "under the love is a stronger emotion" and that emotion is loyalty and dedication to each other, and the ability to inspire your partner and make that person a better person.

In a 1993 article in the Washington Post, Billy describes it as a love song for couples who have been together for a while.

The song is soulful almost mournful with a slow steady beat.  There is a slight gospel feel to the song too. 

Big Shot

Following in the judgmental blame-game tactics of “Captain Jack,” “Big Shot” features Billy Joel berating someone for having to always out-do everyone else.

There are a lot of theories as to who this song was written for, from a girl Joel was dating, to himself, to Mick Jagger’s first wife Bianca. However, it appears to be a combination of the last two. In an interview with Billy Joel on the Howard Stern show on 11/16/10, Joel said it was inspired by the thought of Mick Jagger singing this to Bianca (his wife at the time Joel wrote the song). But earlier in 2005, Joel said on the Today Show that it was largely written about himself, “looking in the mirror in the morning, going, ‘Oh, you had to be a big shot.’”

The song was the second of three top 30 hits from 52nd Street.

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Allentown

"Allentown" is a song by American singer Billy Joel and the lead track on Joel's 1982 album The Nylon Curtain.

The song's theme centers around the resilience of Allentown, Pennsylvania and the surrounding Lehigh Valley region of eastern Pennsylvania in the 1980s. This was as it coped with the decline of its historically strong manufacturing sector and its emergence as a part of the Rust Belt in the latter part of the 20th century. This included the depressed, blue-collar livelihood of Allentown residents following the decline and eventual closure of Bethlehem Steel, which was the world's second-largest steel manufacturer for most of the 20th century.

Lullaby (Goodnight, My Angel)

"Lullabye (Goodnight, My Angel)" is the seventh track from Billy Joel's 1993 album River of Dreams, released in 1994 as the fourth and final single for the album. It was inspired by Alexa Ray Joel, his daughter by Christie Brinkley. 

In 2004, it was announced that Joel had agreed to write two children's books for Scholastic, the U.S. publisher. The first book was titled Goodnight, My Angel (A Lullabye) and is a picture book based on the song and illustrated by Yvonne Gilbert. "Reassuring children that they are not alone or could be abandoned is very important for their well-being," Joel said in a statement in 2004. The second book was titled New York State of Mind and illustrated by Izak.

Goodbye Yellow Brick Road

"Goodbye Yellow Brick Road" is a ballad written by English musician Elton John and songwriter Bernie Taupin, and performed by John. It is the title track on John's album of the same name.

The song expresses a desire to get back to one's "roots", a common theme of Taupin's early lyrics. In 2014, Taupin reflected, "It's been said many times, but Goodbye Yellow Brick Road is a cinematic album. The lyrics to the title track do say that I want to leave Oz and get back to the farm. I think that's still my M.O. these days. I don't mind getting out there and doing what everybody else was doing, but I always had to have an escape hatch."

The song has been widely praised by critics; some consider it a strong contender for John's finest song ever.

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I Guess That's Why They Call It The Blues

"I Guess That's Why They Call It the Blues" is a song by English musician Elton John, with music by John and Davey Johnstone and lyrics by Bernie Taupin, released as the first single from John's 17th studio album Too Low for Zero.

It's a song about being separated from the person you love and being sad because of that (or having 'the blues'). "Time on my hands could be time spent with you" is why they call it the blues. He's lonely, misses his wife and he's thinking about things he'd rather be doing with his time (laughing like children etc.)

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Rocketman Medley

As featured in the 2019 biopic "Rocketman," here's a show-stopping medley of Elton John's biggest hits. Most of the songs in this medley are available here for the first time in a choral arrangement. Solo opportunities and plenty of choral harmonies shine on these classic hits that your choir will love to sing. Includes: Rocket Man (I Think It's Gonna Be a Long, Long Time); Bennie and the Jets; Your Song; Crocodile Rock and Don't Let the Sun Go Down on Me.

Rocketman is a 2019 biographical jukebox musical drama film based on the life, music, and career of British musician Elton John. The film focuses on the story of John in his early days in England as a prodigy at the Royal Academy of Music through his musical partnership with Bernie Taupin. The story is told through his music and is titled after John's 1972 song "Rocket Man".

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