Here is my version. The audio isn't the greatest, so I also posted the lyrics below:
I'm 5 years old on a piano bench
My mother teaches with style
And I'm learning to play every dot and line
To turn people's frowns into smiles
Then I listen to songs on the radio
And I play them back beat for beat
And my sister writes songs that inspire me
To sit in the songwriter's seat
Chorus:
Play us a hymn, you're the piano man
Play us a hymn tonight
'Cause the church needs a light, happy atmosphere
We need you to make us feel right
It's a pretty big crowd for a Sunday
The Bishop gives me a look
The accompanist's gone, so that means I go on
To sightread a hymn from a book
And I might as well be invisible
As they pass the Sacrament cup
And I know that I should be a fly on the wall
And pray that I don't screw it up
(chorus, end)
Artist Statement
I
have been playing piano since I was 5 years old, and being a musician is very
much a part of my life. So when I was
deciding on what type of media/text that I would poach from for this
assignment, there was only one iconic song that came to mind that describes the
joys and sorrows of being a pianist: Billy Joel's "The Piano Man". It is
a personal, first-hand account of Joel's time playing the piano at a bar for
the customers. His experience involves
observing all of the bar patrons who lead passive, pathetic lives and who have
no grand ambitions. The song, as well as
Joel's personal experience as a pianist, come across as extremely melancholy
due to both the setting and the descriptions of the type of people who listen
to him perform. However, while I love
the song, my personal experience with piano has more do to with a place that is
as far removed from a bar as possible: the church. I was always accompanying for Sacrament
meeting and Priesthood meetings at church, especially during my mission in
Brazil. Playing in a somber setting as
opposed to a raucous, alcoholic setting of a bar, I found that my experiences
as an accompanist and performer were markedly different from that of Joel's bar
experience. One large difference that I
noticed has to do with the amount of attention that Joel receives from the
customers. In Joel's song, he mentions
in the last verse that his piano skills are the reason that people are coming
to the bar. He is the center of
attention because of his talent.
However, in my experience, I have found that when it comes to
accompanying for a choir or a sacrament meeting, no one really notices the
accompanist unless he/she commits many errors.
Their job is to perform unnoticed, merely accompanying others who are
singing. This is almost the exact
opposite of Joel's experience of mesmerizing customers with his amazing
skills. I wanted to find a way to bridge
the gap between Joel's experiences and my own.
In order to do this, I decided to combine "The Piano Man"
melody with verses that more accurately portray how I felt growing up mostly as
a pianist accompanying for church meetings.
So I played his song while singing verses that I wrote that sum up my
experiences with performing, including my learning experiences and early inspirations. My biggest regret was that I was not able to write four verses of material to match all of the verses in the original song. This changing of lyrics
reminded me of Neil Young's cover of
John Lennon's "Imagine", where he changes the line "I wonder if
YOU can" to "I wonder if I can".
In doing so, he makes the song more self-reflexive and better portrays
his own point of view. All of this was
accomplished by simply changing the lyrics in order to represent a different
point of view.
In Jenkins' article "How to
become Real", he discusses the difference in perspective between a
toymaker who manufactures a toy and the boy who owns and uses the toy. He declared the following: "Seen from
the perspective of the toymaker, who has an interest in preserving the stuffed
animal just as it was made, the Velveteen Rabbit's loose joints and missing
eyes represent vandalism, the signs of misuse and rough treatment; yet for the
boy, they are traces of fondly remembered experiences, evidence of his having
held the toy too close and pet it too often, in short, marks of its loving
use". To me, this statement
perfectly sums up the relationship and the difference in viewpoint between an
artist and the fans of his work. I love and
respect Billy Joel, but I would not say that what I did with his song "The
Piano Man" was disrespectful or a violation of trust. I simply took something that I already loved
and modified it so that it better reflected my personal experience with piano
playing. I used his song/idea as a
springboard to express my own feelings.
In this way, I feel like the boy who wears out his toy due to
overuse. The toy has much more meaning
to the boy because he knows how it is damaged, and it became worn out because
of his love for it. In this way, I feel
that my take on Billy Joel's song adds to my enjoyment of his song, rather than
diminishing it.
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