A bottle of red, a bottle of white
Whatever kind of mood you're in tonight I'll meet you anytime you want In our Italian restaurant. "Scenes From An Italian Restaurant" is considered by many to be Billy's masterpiece, a pop/rock suite for the ages. It is both a sweeping epic of middle class life as well as an intimate song, a glimpse into a private conversation between two old friends reminiscing about their high school days of "leather jackets and tight blue jeans" and their past hopes and aspirations. One reviewer jokingly referred to the song as a "rememberance of things pasta."
Alternative back cover. This was at an Italian restaurant in Manhattan, The Old Spaghetti Factory, not the one referred to in the song.
The song begins as a romantic wistful ballad, with a simple piano introduction accompanied by an accordion and then sweeping strings. A couple is meeting at an Italian restaurant but we soon discover that this is a meeting of old friends rather than a romantic couple, at least not at this moment. A beautiful saxophone solo then transports us back in time to the couple's teenage years. They reminisce about the good old days and "sweet romantic teenage nights." The line "drop a dime in the box and play a song about New Orleans" is cleverly followed by a Dixieland-like musical segue that lead us to the story about a young couple named Brenda and Eddie who once embodied the hopes and aspirations of their peers before hitting hard times as the money ran out and they divorced.
It is the story of one couple, but it is also a universal story. Like Brenda and Eddie and the unidentified couple at the restaurant, we begin our adult lives with high hopes, but these are often followed by dashed dreams, and then a realization that we cannot go back to the carefree days of our teenage years ("you can never go back there again"). But like Brenda and Eddie who "picked up the pieces" of their lives, we move on and eventually learn to accept and appreciate what life has to offer ("we always knew they would both find a way to get by"). We find that just surviving is a noble fight and we learn that it is the intimate moments in life, the tiny details of life like a glass of wine with an old friend and songs like "Scenes," which are most meaningful. Yet we still hang on to those memories of our youth and to each other. Billy discusses "Scenes" and imagines how Abbey Road may have been created, from a 1994 Master Class.
Billy discusses the lyrics to "Scenes" on SiriusXM.
Billy discusses Abbey Road's influence on "Scenes."
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Kohuept (1987) | A Matter of Trust: The Bridge to Russia (2014)
Originally released on The Stranger (1978) Words and Music by Billy Joel
A bottle of white, a bottle of red Perhaps a bottle of rose instead We'll get a table near the street In our old familiar place You and I - face to face, hmm hmm. A bottle of red, a bottle of white It all depends upon your appetite I'll meet you any time you want In our Italian restaurant Things are okay with me these days Got a good job, got a good office Got a new wife, got a new life And the family's fine Oh we lost touch long ago You lost weight, I did not know You could ever look so nice after so much time Do you remember those days hanging out at the Village Green? Engineer boots, leather jackets and tight blue jeans Oh you drop a dime in the box play a song about New Orleans Cold beer, hot lights, My sweet romantic teenage nights Oh, oh, oh, oh… Brenda and Eddie were the popular steadies And the king and the queen of the prom Riding around with the car top down and the radio on Nobody looked any finer Or was more of a hit at the Parkway Diner We never knew we could want more than that out of life Surely Brenda and Eddie Would always know how to survive. Oh, oh, oh, oh… Brenda and Eddie were still going steady In the summer of '75 When they decided the marriage would be at the end of July Everyone said they were crazy "Brenda you know that you're much too lazy, and Eddie could never afford to live that kind of life." Oh, but there we were wavin' Brenda and Eddie goodbye. Oh, oh, oh Well they got an apartment with deep pile carpets And a couple of paintings from Sears A big waterbed that they bought with the bread They had saved for a couple of years But they started to fight when the money got tight And they just didn't count on the tears. No, no, oh, yeah rock 'n roll Oh, oh, oh Well, they lived for a while in a very nice style But it's always the same in the end They got a divorce as a matter of course And they parted the closest of friends Then the king and the queen went back to the green But you can never go back there again Brenda and Eddie had had it already by the summer of '75 From the high to the low to the end of the show For the rest of their lives They couldn't go back to the greasers The best they could do was pick up their pieces We always knew they would both find a way to get by Oh and that's all I heard about Brenda and Eddie Can't tell you more 'cause I've told you already And here we are wavin' Brenda and Eddie goodbye Oh, oh, oh A bottle of red, a bottle of white Whatever kind of mood you're in tonight I'll meet you anytime you want In our Italian restaurant. 
At Our Italian Restaurant by RC deWinter. This is a beautiful and stunning work. © 2012 RC deWinter. All Rights Reserved. Used with permission of the artist. Click on image for link.
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Musically, Billy has said that he had fragments or pieces of various songs that he had carried around in his head and notebook, and then put them all together in Scenes using side two of The Beatles' Abbey Road as inspiration. It worked. You can listen to Billy explain this himself; click the audio players above. While there are four "movements" to the song, including the third movement that Billy calls "The Ballad of Brenda and Eddie," they all blend together nicely. Billy uses various musical interludes to bring us from one movement to the next including a sweeping saxophone solo, a jaunty Dixieland-like segue, and an incredible descending piano riff that has become a signature moment for Billy in concert.
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"But you can never go back there again" Photo by Art Maillet/Sony Music.
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Although never released as a single, "Scenes From An Italian Restaurant" has remained one of Billy's most popular, enduring, and celebrated songs. Who wouldn't welcome this open-ended invitation from an old friend: "I'll meet you any time you want, in our Italian restaurant."
Videos
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Live version of "Scenes From An Italian Restaurant" (audio only) during Billy's 1987 Russian concerts.
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A video for "Scenes From An Italian Restaurant" that I made. © 2009-2010 One Final Serenade except as stated. "Scenes From An Italian Restaurant" is © 1977 Sony Music Entertainment.
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1977: This is the world premiere of "Scenes" from a concert at C.W. Post Campus aired on WIOQ (audio only).
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1982: Live version from the concert video Live in Long Island.
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2001: Billy discusses how he composed "Scenes" at a Q&A session which was aired on A&E as "In His Own Words."
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2013: This is a great live version of the song from the 2013 New Orleans Jazz Fest.
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See more videos at Scenes From An Italian Restaurant - Videos Page.
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