Davy will probably be in the Navy for life. So that’s what happened to him. 
I heard this song come on the other day and was waiting for that verse, which never came. Poor Davy can’t even get in some versions of the song. It was also missing they guy who could be an actor, if he could get out of this place.
Nope.
Davey got a degree which made him immune from all future convictions.
Good thing too as he sold some stocks on a steel mill in Allentown. The catch? There are no steel mills in Allentown!
I understand he later opened up a grand cafe and became quite the big shot.
Joel refers to his song being cut in The Entertainer.
“I am the entertainer, I’ve come to do my show,
You’ve heard my latest record, it’s been on the radio
It took me years to write it, they were the best years of my life,
It was a beautiful song, but it ran too long
If you’re gonna have a hit you gotta make it fit
So they cut it down to 3:05”
I refuse to believe it wasn’t pills. I already googled it and everyone wants to deny it. But listen to the aching and melodrama in the voice. It was 1978 I think. After all that building up of a straw man to tear him down, How would the song advance without that step up from the wine?
The song came out in 1977, I think, so this was a look back from not far in the future at all.
At least with him we got to learn about his profession and his hobby.
I love his music and I don’t think that in general he sings like he has a mouth full of billiard balls, but that line has always sounded to me like “Thundering Eddie”.
“Thundering Eddie would always know how to survive”. 
Of course I always knew it was “Brenda and Eddie”. If nothing else, the context tells you that it’s two people.
It’s because he pronounces her name as “Brender.” (Like the robot!)
Think bigger - perhaps the song was set in Miami 2017…
Yup. Because Billy’s from Lawn Guyland.
Since Joel has stated that these were real people he knew during his short stint playing in a piano bar he probably did not know them long enough to find out what happened to them.
I’ve always wondered just what the hell a “real estate novelist” is, anyway.
Or 3017 – maybe he really is saying “Bender.” 
A guy who’s writing (actually staring at blank pages and thinking about writing) the “great American novel” while paying the bills by selling real estate, which is of course just a way of paying the bills until he gets his big break - or so he keeps telling himself…
Yup. Like John the bartender keeps telling himself he could be a movie star if only he could get out of the bar.
Billy Joel doesn’t seem to be big on sophisticated rhyming schemes. I am pretty sure my junior high English teacher would have failed me if I turned in some of his style of lyrics for a poetry assignment.
It doesn’t have to be like that. I still worry about Tommy and Gina to this day based on all the problems Bon Jovi laid out in just a few verses. Jack and Diane are another couple that weigh heavily in my thoughts from time to time but Davy and John’s only known redeeming quality is that they have jobs that rhyme with other convenient short words.
My original plan was to write “mouth full of gum balls,” but I recently saw the episode of ARCHER where everyone gets drunk and Pam decides to see how many billiard balls she can fit in there.
My wife says it’s a guy that writes real estate listings as if they are short story entries. He doesn’t just write “2Br 2Ba ocn vu”, but instead describes the house by relating it to the people that have lived there, and their stories.
She compared it to the NYT wedding announcements, which she described as mini stories that were worth reading even if you didn’t know the people involved.
I heard he’s doing a stand-up routine in LA. And Davy was trying to decide if he should buy some speakers. He got some kicks instead, they weren’t cheap either.
I don’t think so. The whole song is about people who have bigger plans that they’ll never actually get around to, either through procrastination, lack of ability, or simply circumstances.
Most Americans, actually.
I don’t think Davy was literally still in the Navy. It’s just that his time in the Navy is all he’s got. Now he sits on barstools and reminisces about his adventures.
And yeah, a real estate novelist is someone who is just doing real estate ‘temporarily’ while they write the great novel - a process that will likely continue forever. Like ‘actresses’ in Hollywood who are temporarily working as waitresses - or hookers.