Scenes from an Italian Restaurant

"Scenes from an Italian Restaurant" is a song from Billy Joel's 1977 album The Stranger. Although never released as a single, it has become one of Joel's most celebrated compositions among fans, appearing on most of his compilation albums. The song is effectively a medley of three individual songs which are fused together. In an interview, Joel cites the second side of The Beatles album Abbey Road as one of the main influences behind it. The song starts with a gentle melodic piano ballad, which sets the scene of two old classmates in an Italian restaurant, moving on to a triumphant and uptempo jazz-influenced piece in the middle, which then segues into a rock and roll section (which Joel refers to as "The Ballad of Brenda and Eddie")

[Intro] A bottle of white, a bottle of red Perhaps a bottle of rosé instead We'll get a table near the street In our old familiar place You and I, face to face A bottle of red, a bottle of white It all depends upon your appetite I'll meet you any time you want In our Italian restaurant [Segue] [Verse 1] Things are okay with me these days Got a good job, got a good office Got a new wife, got a new life And the family is fine Lost touch long ago You lost weight, I did not know You could ever look so nice After so much time [Verse 2] You remember those days Hanging out at the Village Green? Engineer boots, leather jackets And tight blue jeans Oh, you drop a dime in the box Play the song about New Orleans Cold beer, hot lights My sweet romantic teenage nights [Segue] [Verse 3] Brenda and Eddie were the popular steadies And the king and the queen of the prom Riding around with the car top down And the radio on Nobody looked any finer Or was more of a hit at the Parkway Diner We never knew we could want More than that out of life Surely Brenda and Eddie Would always know how to survive [Verse 4] Brenda and Eddie were still going steady In the summer of '75 When they decided their marriage Should be at the end of July Everyone said they were crazy "Brenda you know that you're much too lazy And Eddie could never afford To live that kind of life." Oh but there we were waving Brenda and Eddie goodbye [Verse 5] Well, they got an apartment With deep pile carpets And a couple of paintings from Sears A big waterbed that they Bought with the bread They had saved for a couple of years They started to fight When the money got tight And they just didn't count on the tears [Bridge] Yeah, rock and roll! [Verse 6] Well, they lived for a while in a very nice style But it's always the same in the end They got a divorce as a matter of course And they parted the closest of friends Then the king and the queen Went back to the green But you can never go back there again [Verse 7] Brenda and Eddie had had it already By the summer of '75 From the high to the low To the end of the show For the rest of their lives They couldn't go back to the Greasers The best they could do Was pick up their pieces We always knew they would Both find a way to get by And that's all I heard about Brenda and Eddie Can't tell you more 'cause I told you already And here we are waving Brenda and Eddie goodbye [Segue] [Outro] Bottle of red, bottle of white Whatever kind of mood you're in tonight I'll meet you anytime you want In our Italian restaurant