It was a Billy Joel state of mind at the opening night of the Tribeca Film Festival.
The world premiere of the Piano Man’s documentary “Billy Joel: And So It Goes” kicked off the 24th edition of the festival at the Beacon Theatre on Wednesday night.
Although the 76-year-old music legend was absent from his big night after revealing his shocking brain disorder diagnosis two weeks ago, Joel’s presence was still very much felt as the audience watched the first half of the two-part doc that will premiere on HBO and HBO Max later this summer.
Here, we break down some of the biggest revelations of Part 1:
He wanted to be a heavy-metal rocker
While we always think of Joel as the ultimate piano balladeer, he actually wanted to get his Led Zeppelin on with an early band.
The young Piano Man broke away from his early band The Hassles with Jon Small to form the heavy-metal duo Attila (as in Attila the Hun) in 1969 that set out to “destroy the world with amplification.”
“I didn’t know one person that liked what we were doing,” says Joel, who can be seen as the hair apparent to Robert Plant in the doc. “But I did.”
Joel broke his bandmate’s heart by stealing his best friend’s wife
The Piano Man fell in love with Elizabeth Weber, who was Small’s wife at the time.
“I was just in love with a woman,” he says. “And I got punched in the nose, which I deserved.”
But Small took the high road after Weber inspired Joel’s 1971 debut, “Cold Spring Harbor.”
“You could tell from the lyrics that he was really in love with Elizabeth,” Small says of songs such as “She’s Got a Way.”
He attempted suicide after falling into depression over the affair
“I was just in a lot of pain .. so I just thought I’d end it all,” he says of trying to take his own life by overdosing on sleeping pills.
But after surviving the attempt, he cracked “You can’t even do yourself in,” while revealing the compassion he was shown by his betrayed best friend through the ordeal: “Jon saved my life.”
Joel was performing as Billy Martin when he was inspired to write “Piano Man”
After he moved cross-country to Los Angeles with Weber to make more music, Joel became the resident lounge lizard at the Executive Room in LA.
But he didn’t want to perform under his recording moniker, so the artist born William Martin Joel performed as “Bill Martin at the keyboards” after his first and middle names.
“This was a real-life experience,” he says. “And I thought, ‘I gotta get a song outta this!’ … And that’s where the ‘Piano Man’ song came from.”
The Plano Man didn’t like being compared to the Rocket Man
When it was suggested that Joel use Elton John’s band, he thought that it was “a terrible idea.”
“Why would I wanna work with another well-known piano player’s band?” he says. “The lack of imagination was staggering. And I was already having critical issue with them comparing me to Elton.”
Beatles producer be damned, he stayed loyal to his band
After Joel said goodbye to Hollywood and returned to New York with his now wife and soon-to-be manager Weber, he sought out famed Beatles producer George Martin to work on what would be 1977’s “The Stranger.”
Martin agreed, but he wanted Joel to use studio musicians instead of the New York crew he had formed on 1976’s “Turnstiles” — a dealbreaker for him.
“And I passed on working with George Martin,” he says. “Love me, love my band.”
Joel thought ‘Just the Way You Are’ was ‘too mushy’
“Just the Way You Are” — the second single from “The Stranger,” which would become a US Top 10 hit — was inspired by his wife and then manager Weber.
“It just didn’t feel right, it was too mushy,” says Joel.
But after being pushed to be a single by Weber — not to mention Linda Ronstadt and Phoebe Snow — his breakthrough ballad won Grammys for Record and Song of the Year and took Joel to a whole new level of stardom.
He was an arena headliner now.
He faced backlash from Catholics for “Only the Good Die Young”
The “Only the Good Die Young” lyric, “You Catholic girls start much too late,” drew the ire of the church.
“It ended up being banned by the Catholic church,” he says. “And then, as soon as they banned the sale of it, kids went out in droves [to buy it].”
Joel’s drinking problem led to “You May Be Right” — and the end of his marriage
As Joel’s drinking problem worsened, he took to riding his motorcycle while intoxicated. And when he drunkenly rode his bike to Weber one night, it inspired his 1980 hit “You May Be Right” with the lyrics “You may be right/I may be crazy/But it just may be a lunatic you’re looking for.”
But after Joel had an accident while riding his Harley-Davidson in 1978, it crashed their marriage.
“I was amazed that I was still alive,” he says. “I should’ve died in that accident.”
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