The Billy Joel Years

From a town known as Winchester, Virginia
Lived a boy who’s sole ambition
Was to burn out like a shooting star
And crash down to earth like James Dean in a silver Porsche.
To have his ex-girlfriends and old teachers
Convene one last time
With the phrase, “Only the Good Die Young,”
Slipping past their tongues
As easily as the bread and wine
While they behold the smooth face in the coffin.
Somewhere out in Hollywood
A drunk would throw his shoulder
Around an old ghost sitting at a piano
Asking him to play the song he heard
When he fell in love for the first time.
But he’s no longer an Innocent Man
Who can think such simple thoughts.

Each day the same words from the friendly sage
Echo in the lump of clay between his ears
And rattle the thin piece of bone holding it all together.
One day, you’re gonna care.
He left Captain Jack behind a while ago
Sitting in the old red ragtop
Still clutching the wheel
Wondering if he’s ever going to come back
With that pack of cigarettes.

He finally found his Uptown Girl
After he moved down South.
The first time he smelled the strawberries in her hair
And drowned for an hour in her eyes.
That brown bottle once soldered to his hand
Slipped out of his palm
And shattered on the floor next to all his broken hearts.