The Big Easy Top Ten: Scenes From an Italian Restaurant (#3)

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Oh, you didn’t see this one coming, did you!! Let’s face it, nothing screams “New Orleans” like this song. But hey, New Orleans is honored in the lyrics…and this is one of the best songs of the 1970s, so you bet it’s on the list! Sing along. #3: Scenes From an Italian Restaurant - Billy Joel Yep, get a New Yorker singing about things he saw in an Italian restaurant and you’re booking a ticket to New Orleans before the song’s done. This is one of my favorite Billy Joel songs. If you were to throw away all of other songs on The Stranger — classics like the title song, “Just the Way You Are,” and “Only the Good Die Young” — and have this song as the only tune on the album, it’d still be a great album. Joel said he had some song fragments, the biggest of which was “The Ballad of Brenda and Eddie.” Being a huge fan of Abbey Road and the side two song snippets that all seamlessly flow together, Joel thought it would be good to take the short songs and combine them into one song. It works so well. You start with two people having a meal at “a table near the street,” catching up (“things are okay with me these days”), reminiscing, and they get on the subject of Brenda and Eddie (the primary part of the song). This wasn’t the only time in the 70s you got a three-for-one special: Paul McCartney and Wings gave you “Band on the Run” (and, earlier, the two-for-one special “Uncle Albert/Admiral Halsey” ). There’s a meme on Facebook that says, “Band on the Run: when you want to hear three songs but only have time for one.” And there were all those art rock/prog rock “suites” back then, so this wasn’t unusual. But dang, this song has stood the test of time. I’ve loved this song for going on 50 years now, and I’d probably still be playing in loudly in another 50 at the old folks’ home. Scenes From an Italian Restaurant Written by Billy Joel Recorded by Billy Joel From The Stranger, 1977 NEW ORLEANS LYRICS: You drop a dime in the box and play a song about New Orleans