Aha! So with that kind of job there’s absolutely no reason why you can’t find time to get married and start a family.
Maybe he was secretly into Davey, who was still in the Navy. It was a different time, after all.
No, but you can be sure he had plenty of excuses.
Marriage is EVIL! :mad:
Having worked in real estate, I can tell you that professional will suck up all the time you are willing to put into it. I’ve seen plenty of people leave because it did not allow time for a spouse or family.
So did I but I was into the planning and development of shopping centers (just a regular desk with some site visits.)
What was that movie about a girl who went into real estate sales? The part wherein she said, “At least I’ll have Saturday and Sunday free”, to which her boss shouted, “Are you kidding, those are the most important days of the week!”
Saw him about a week before his birthday when he said “I’ll be 69. Used to be my favorite number.”
He totally kicked ass. I was very surprised by all the college kids at the Garden. I thought it was gong to be like when we say Earth, Wind & Fire, Chicago double bill at Jones beach a few years ago., where me and my husband were the youngest people there-- and I was just shy of 50 at the time.
“Making love to his tonic and gin” is a fine lyric. Have you never seen some person sitting at a bar, staring into his drink, maybe swirling it around with his swizzle stick, as if it’s the only important thing left to him? That’s what the lyric says to me.
I immediately understood it the same way the first time I heard it. I had visions of myself ending up like that in another 50 years.
Yeah, it never really stuck out to me as being odd or anything (same with the line in the OP) and I’m not even a fan of Joel’s.
No! Next are you going to tell me that the pianoman isn’t really being rewarded with a jar full of baked goods?
Hey, I thought it was obvious, but then I thought the rest of the song was pretty obvious too, and yet there have been many people over the years seemingly confused by the lyrics. It’s come up many times before on the SDMB.
For the confused: Joel is simply describing who are essentially a bunch of losers in a bar who are either drinking because their past lives were better than what they have now, or they are dreamers hoping to be something they are not, or using their dreams to mask the cruel reality of their current lives.
Davy, who’s still in the Navy, and probably will be for life - spoiler alert, he’s not still in the Navy, but nothing else that’s happened to him is interesting, so it’s all he can talk about.
Paul is the guy who claims to be a novelist, but he either sucks at it or can’t finish his book (or probably even start it) so he sells real estate for a living while telling himself and everyone else that he’s better than that.
The waitress isn’t literally practicing politics - she’s schmoozing the clientele for tips, or perhaps a pickup.
His friend John wants to be a movie star, but finds himself back tending bar every night.
And so it goes. The place fills with sad, lonely people who dream or have dreamed about being something else, but they never quite managed it.
But the kicker to the song is that all these losers who wanted to be better can still recognize that the singer is not one of them, because he’s the one who actually has the talent to get out. And if the song is at all autobiographical, he made it out.
I think it’s maybe Joel’s best song. It’s certainly my favorite of his, but I’m not a huge fan.
I disagree with a couple of points:
I’ve always thought Davy was a lifer … maybe never been married, or was married two or three times, but none of the marriages could stand the strain of a serviceman being away for long periods of time. Now it’s too late to leave the service and start a new life, so all he has left is the Navy. The Navy is indeed his life.
The waitress could indeed be practicing politics. She’s one of those who goes around to the customers and butts into their conversations with all sorts of annoying drivel, liberally sprinkled with her own half-baked political opinions and takes on current events.
At least, that’s the way I’ve always understood the lyrics.
…and yet, in some very imperfect way, they’ve found a place where they can find some comfort, where they’ve got at least some social life with others who they don’t need to feel inferior to.
And the piano man knows he’s got a place here, too, making these schlubs feel at least a little bit better. He’s asked, “man, what are you doing here?” Answer: he’s an entertainer, and he’s entertaining them.
The song is overplayed to death, but it is a good one.
No, the waitress is “practicing politics” by keeping the business men happy enough to tip her well while avoiding their gropes.
And no one is a loser. They’re all successful enough in their fields, even John and the waitress, but they dreamt of greater successes in the wider world as kids, and when they hear so talented a musician in a Holiday Inn in Bridgeport, CT, they want to encourage him to move fast and chase those dreams, instead of settling for a comfortable life, as they did.
And Paul says he ‘never had time’ to get married because he’s gay, but still closeted, because this was the '70s. I’m not sure about Davey.
Also, the singer is an unreliable narrator, voicing the most pessimistic and cynical interpretation, because he can’t even see that the manager is enjoying his performance.
‘Loser’ was a poor choice of words. Maybe disappointed, resigned, sad, feeling like failures, etc. Wantingbto be more than what they are or wishing they still had what they once did.
“Man, what are *you *doing here?” = “Man, you’re *way *too good for this dump. You should be a star at Columbia Records!”
Sad that on a Saturday night they are happier just listening to a good musician instead of dancing all night to a second rate bar band but still not going home alone.
They’re regulars. It’s probably the only watering hole in their neighborhood. They don’t sound much like the dancing kind to me, either. More like the chronically downtrodden and depressed.
Watering holes don’t have in tune pianos. They have juke boxes. This isn’t a neighborhood bar, it’s a lounge in a suburban chain hotel that now a reputation as a good place to stop off on the way home because John mixes a good drink, that leggy waitress is an eyeful, and the manager gets you home safe if you’ve had one too many.
And because that guy on the piano is pretty good.
They used to go into they city or to a local dive to dance all night or listen to hot blues, but now they have jobs and kids and mortgages, and that’s good, but they don’t want this kid getting stuck here too just because the tips are good (which won’t happen, because he doesn’t like playing those old songs for the G&T guys.)
The song is about dreams deferred too long.