Month: August 2022

I think most can agree that Billy Joel’s “Piano Man” is a classic song. As a kid, I would hear the tune and think of it as a st9ry of bar life. Hell, it was the 1980’s and “Cheers” was dominant. I didn’t associate “Piano Man” with Billy because his hit songs and music videos were the pop music of the moment in sound. Songs like “Uptown Girl”, “Pressure”, “Tell Her About It”,, and the song that really made me a Billy Joel fan: We Didn’t Start The Fire. Unless you know the career and life of Joel. you wouldn’t associate that music with “Piano Man”. You wouldn’t know the true autobiographical story behind the tune and Billu.

I love that song. I also love a classic blog post that puts a humorous spin on the song.

Clark Brooks is a long-time online presence in the Tampa Bay metroplex – from his own blogs since the 2000s, to his Tampa Bay Lightning coverage with me at Raw Charge in the 2010s, to his comedy coverage on The Identity Tampa Bay. His post, Everybody Hates the Piano Man, takes the song and puts a for-humor spin on them. I’m not saying parody a-la “Weird Al” Yankovic but in literal meaning.

It’s an old post that’s not sowing up on search engine results at this point That’s why I’m writing about it – to share it (clicky-clicky!). Like Billy Joel with music, Clark Brooks has shown a thorough ability to write and joke over time.

“The Piano Nab” (above) and the blogger/comedian (below).