{"id":348989,"date":"2025-11-01T22:52:51","date_gmt":"2025-11-01T22:52:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/348989\/"},"modified":"2025-11-01T22:52:51","modified_gmt":"2025-11-01T22:52:51","slug":"billy-joel-songs-every-new-york-mayor-should-know","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/348989\/","title":{"rendered":"Billy Joel songs every New York mayor should know"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Any mayor of New York City ought to know the basics of Billy Joel. To help candidate Zohran Mamdani, who recently revealed his total unfamiliarity with Joel&#8217;s 1976 anthem \u201cNew York State of Mind,\u201d we put together a crash-course playlist of classics from the Piano Man. Here are five songs to know:<\/p>\n<p><strong>\u201cMovin\u2019 Out (Anthony\u2019s Song)\u201d <\/strong>A punchy, catchy tune about the ever-elusive American Dream. And it takes a little swipe at New Jersey with the line, \u201cWho needs a house out in Hackensack \/ Is that all you get for your money?\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>\u201cScenes From an Italian Restaurant\u201d<\/strong> More a Long Island song than a New York City song, given its themes of suburban youth, romance and disillusionment. Still, it was reportedly inspired by two Manhattan eateries: Fontana Di Trevi near Carnegie Hall, where Joel and producer Phil Ramone often dined, and Benito II on Mulberry St., where a waiter supposedly inspired the line, \u201cA bottle of white \/ A bottle of red \/ Perhaps a bottle of ros\u00e9 instead?\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>\u201cAllentown\u201d<\/strong> This 1982 single hits some politically powerful notes, telling a story of working-class life in the Rust Belt. It was originally written about Levittown, the Long Island suburb where Joel was raised (technically the Levittown section of Hicksville) and which helped define the idyllic vision of post-War America.<\/p>\n<p><strong>\u201cPiano Man\u201d<\/strong> Is it possible anyone has NOT heard this song? Just in case, it goes on the list. Though inspired by Joel\u2019s time tickling the ivories in a Los Angeles dive bar, it could be set in any city with a boulevard of broken dreams.<\/p>\n<p><strong>\u201cMiami 2017 (Seen the Lights Go Out on Broadway)\u201d <\/strong>Written in response to the Daily News&#8217;\u00a0famous 1975 headline \u201cFord to City: Drop Dead,\u201d it later showed up in Joel\u2019s benefit-concert sets for victims of 9\/11 and Superstorm Sandy. It\u2019s a stadium-ready anthem, perfect for Bic-waving, if you\u2019re old enough to remember what that is.<\/p>\n<p><img alt=\"Rafer Guzm\u00e1n\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"88\" height=\"104\" decoding=\"async\" data-nimg=\"1\" style=\"color:transparent\"  src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/1762037571_4_image\"\/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Any mayor of New York City ought to know the basics of Billy Joel. To help candidate Zohran&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":348990,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5122],"tags":[5229,22765,975,405,403,5226,5225,5228,5227,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-348989","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-billy-joel","10":"tag-music","11":"tag-new-york","12":"tag-new-york-city","13":"tag-newyork","14":"tag-newyorkcity","15":"tag-ny","16":"tag-nyc","17":"tag-united-states","18":"tag-united-states-of-america","19":"tag-unitedstates","20":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","21":"tag-us","22":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115476903584119345","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/348989","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=348989"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/348989\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/348990"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=348989"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=348989"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=348989"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}