I think, in this world, I would never hear a lonelier song refrain. This one belies the jazzy piano solo—and then the famous harmonica instrumental—at the beginning of the song. The rhythm almost readies us for a love song, but it goes on, first, like a beautiful irony for the story it tells, and then later, like the melody that was meant to echo the words in the first place. Each time, I allow myself to experience this shift, and I imagine an impish playmate, who could convince me that the idea he put in my head had always been mine, never his.
The song doesn’t rush. It takes its time in introducing the regular Saturday crowd in one bar, who “shuffles in” to “forget about life for a while”. We are brought to the place by the Piano Man, and through his eyes we see tired people nursing their drinks only as much they are nursing their broken spirits. Through his music, we, too, “share [in the] drink they call loneliness”.
On the bar, we see an old man “making love to his tonic and gin” who calls out to the Piano Man, “Son, can you play us a memory/ I’m not very sure how it goes/ But it’s sad and it’s sweet and I knew it complete/ When I wore a younger man’s clothes.” It is not difficult to imagine this old man’s sadness, as that which Shakespeare describes is for the memory of things past.
I wonder what stories this old man has. What things must he have seen? How much of himself has he poured out into the world? How much remains?
On the other side of the bar, is the Piano Man’s friend, John, the jovial bartender, who confesses that he would have made it big somewhere else, if only he “could get out of this place”. I keep thinking about the “smile that ran away from his face”, and about how lonely a thing that must be to witness. Elsewhere in the room, there is Paul, a novelist who “never had time for a wife”; Davy, who will, for the rest of his life, be a navy man; a waitress “practicing politics”, and businessmen who are slowly getting stoned.
Sing us a song, you’re the Piano Man! Sing us a song tonight!
To this, the Piano Man sings his sad refrain, Oh la la-la, la-di-da, la-la, la-di-da, da-da...
Wordless, the refrain is a resignation, an answer that is really a non-answer, like every resignation is. Like an answer, it offers comfort and an assurance; but unlike an answer, it calms the soul only until it wonders again.
I used to equate resignation with cowardice, but I have long since learned how horribly wrong I was. I now know that the courage necessary to decide to let go/give up pales in comparison to the courage necessary to renew that decision, every time the heart second-guesses itself.
I have a special empathy for people who have had to reshape their dreams and who hold on to whatever shape remains, in order to be where the people they love need them to be. Isn’t this reshaping a resignation? And isn’t this resignation admirable? Do we not do this because we had to step up too soon, or perhaps because we had to make right that we did not do so soon enough?
Later in the song, the crowd, who comes to the little bar mostly for the Piano Man, asks him, “Man, what are you doing here?”, to which he replies his sad refrain, Oh, la, la-la, la-di-da, la-la, la-di-da, da-da…
Too often, like the Piano Man, we become painfully aware of how much more we could be, if we were less constrained. And when we think of this, we find ourselves embarrassed by such selfish thoughts. For later, when we think about the people who need us where we are, we are reminded that our pain is also our privilege, and that if only so they may hold on to their dreams whole, we would quietly lay ours down.
Oh, la, la-la,
la-di-da, la-la, la-di-da, da-da…
