As promised, a newly created video for Billy Joel‘s beloved 1977 song from The Stranger, “Scenes from an Italian Restaurant,” has premiered on Billy’s YouTube channel.
The animated clip brings to life the two main characters of the song, Brenda and Eddie, who meet at an Italian restaurant after years apart to reminisce about their lives. The clip pretty much illustrates the lyrics exactly, as the former couple catch each other up on what they’re doing now, think about their days together as the king and queen of the prom, and recall their ill-fated marriage and subsequent divorce.
The fun part of the video, however, is spotting all the Billy Joel Easter eggs. For example, the story unfolds comic book-style via the pages of a menu on the table of the restaurant, which is called Cacciatore’s — the name of a character in another Stranger song, “Movin’ Out.” The menu’s cover is decorated with a mask and a pair of boxing gloves, both motifs of The Stranger‘s artwork, which recur throughout the video.
In another comic-strip panel, there are scenes of people outside a bar called “Zanzibar,” the name of a 1978 song by Billy. When we see Brenda and Eddie’s “apartment with deep-pile carpets,” the walls are decorated with framed covers of Billy’s 1970s-era albums.
Also sprinkled in are scenes of Billy and his band performing live in various eras, and one shot shows a wall of posters advertising a gig at the “Coliseum” — a reference to Billy’s hometown venue, the now-defunct Nassau Coliseum. As the song ends and the menu closes, it morphs into the cover of The Stranger.
The Stranger is included in the nine-LP box set Billy Joel — The Vinyl Collection, Vol. 1, due out on November 5.
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