Do you remember we were wondering what does a "real-esate novelist" mean ?
Billy Joel himself answered in a interview :
Ever since I first heard “Piano Man,” I’ve wondered: What is a “real-estate novelist”?
It’s an invented phrase. When I was working in a piano bar in L.A., around ’72, everybody came and dumped their day on you. Paul was a real-estate broker, and he would say, “I’m working on this book.” But he was there every night, crocked out of his skull, and I would think, “How’s this guy getting any writing done, unless he’s doing the F. Scott Fitzgerald bit: knock out a couple of things when he first gets up, after the coffee buzz, and then start drinkin’. ” Maybe he was like the guy in The Shining, and he just kept writing the same sentence over and over.