Piano Man Media Coursework

Piano Man - Billy Joel

The opening of the video is an establishing tracking shot of the bar were Billy Joel is playing the piano. It is called the piano bar because of the name of the song (Piano Man). This shows the audience the title of the song by showing the piano at the start because it is telling you what the song is about. Billy Joel was turned down by his record label for this song and because of this he went down to a bar and asked to play it for everyone. Everyone loved it and he was then picked up by other record labels to record and produce the song. This story is shown in the video because it shows Billy Joel sat at the piano in a bar playing the song. This resembles the story behind it and shows the narrative. The song was based on what he could see at a bar he had visited before he wrote the song and that is also shown in the video.

The first shot shows people having a good time and ordering drinks. This is a normal atmosphere at a bar at the time the song was written because of the drink and the smoking.There is smoke everywhere and it makes the audience feel like they are there. The tracking shot that goes across the bar and then follows people to Billy Joel shows how the audience feel like they are there because it is like a POV shot because the shot looks like the audience are coming to watch him perform. This is unique because it is not shown a lot in music videos because it is not the most common thing to does especially now because videos now are very different. The line about the old man sitting next to him shows the man at the same time and gives the audience a visual representation of the man and the story progressing. We now know we will see the song played out as a visual representation. The line "When I wore a younger mans clothes" then goes on to show a bar many years ago with BIlly Joel as a younger man in a younger mans clothes. This links to the visual representations shown. The cuts used to take us to the younger bar show a range of posters that show what Billy has done and what lead him here so the editing has been used to show the past and to set up the start of the narrative.

The next verse goes on and talks about his friend John. This shows him at the bar and his life of bar work. The line "He gets me my drinks for free". Shows how Billy Joel has no money because he was dropped from his record label and has nothing to fall back on. It also shows how his friend saved him so it shows how no matter what life throws at you, you can still get back up. "If I could get out of this place", shows how John feels trapped in his work and needs to get out. This can also relate to Billy's feelings about the bar because he was dropped with nothing left but a bar to play in so he feels trapped at this bar. This then carries on to show the waitresses serving the businessmen at a table. One line is "It's better than drinking alone". Tis line shows how their lives are not the happiest because they are coming to the bar to get drunk and forget about life and try to find love because they keep looking at the waitresses. When one of them grabs the waitress she throws a drink over him and rejects him. This is showing how they are being rejected by society and by love so they are just getting drunk instead.

The next part show shows all of the people at the bar starting to sing along like people used to when life was simpler. This is referring back to the start of the video and how everyone in the past used to sing along. Tis is also relating to the time when Billy Joel had nothing but he used to make people feel happy by singing along and now he is famous again he is bringing joy once more. Another point to his past is when he says 'The manager gives me a smile". This shows how when this song became popular his manager tanked him and said what a good job he had done. He has made everyone love his music once again and brought back his life.

Some good points to this are the fact that the whole video relates to Billy Joel's life and how it went down hill but yet he got back up again after playing this song in a bar. It is very clever how the narrative is shown and played out because it is quite complex and confusing to follow but if you know the story it is brilliant. Some bad points is that if you don't know what happened to Billy Joel and his life with this song then the video is not going to make sense to them.