218. “Piano Man” by Billy Joel was inspired by his experience playing in a piano bar in Los Angeles. The reason for including this song as part of “See What I Hear” is found in the first verse, “It’s nine o’clock on a Saturday / The regular crowd shuffles in / There’s an old man sittin’ next to me /Makin’ love to his tonic and gin / He says, “Son, can you play me a memory? / I’m not really sure how it goes / But it’s sad and it’s sweet and I knew it complete / When I wore a younger man’s clothes”. The old man in the song doesn’t say, play me a song or play me a tune, he asks Joel to play a “memory”. Memories may be one of the reasons we listen to the same song repeatedly — they remind us of events or people from our past. Most couples have what they call “their song”, because they trigger a happy time. Songs are musical poems that help us remember how we got here.
