The First Album I Ever Bought

Billy Joel
Greatest Hits Volumes 1 & 2

I was 8 years old when my mom took me to the grocery store and the song “Piano Man” came on the radio. At first I thought the voice sounded like a girl’s, it was so high. I can’t remember if she said it was Billy Joel, but when I think back on it now I can probably guesstimate that she had no idea who it was. You see, my mother never listens to music. Not only does she never listen to music, but the last time I came home to Florida to visit family and she picked me up from the airport, she actually had FOX News Radio on in the car. FOX News! Ugh, it hurts the heart…

Anyways, I found out some way or another that it was Billy Joel. I didn’t find it out on the Internet because we didn’t have computers back then. Shit, how did people figure things out 15 years ago? Did I go to the library and look up “old man making love to tonic and gin” in the Dewey Decimal System? Whatever, whatever my 8 year old self was a very resourceful young man, and he found out that Billy Joel’s voice was once very high, and he was, in fact, the Piano Man.

So I went to my local Spec’s and spent a whopping $30 on the double-disc album. And I fucking loved it. I didn’t know a thing about music, the piano, rock bands, nothing. I just knew that when I played this record, it made me happy.

My folks had a baby grand piano in the living room and I sat down on the tall piano bench and tried to figure the songs out. Finally, one day I asked my mom for piano lessons.

My mom told me she tried giving piano lessons to my brothers, and they hated it. She was sparing me from something I wouldn’t like, she said. But I pressed on, and my mother found this nice Jewish lady who advertised in my elementary school yearbook so I got a piano teacher.

This album was my introduction to the piano. My introduction to music itself, really.