Cat Power Channels Pathos, Covers CCR During Stirring Set

Cat Power may not ever conquer her on stage awkwardness but at least she's found ways to defeat a majority of her fears. Saying barely a word to an overflowing early evening crowd, and backed by a four-piece band that included drum wizard Jim White, the singer focused on maximizing muted minimalism. Largely sticking to recent material and cover songs, the vocalist channeled more desperation ("Woman Left Lonely"), faith ("Metal Heart") and melancholy ("Tracks of My Tears") than one encounters in a self-help book — and certainly more than raucous festival-goers are used to. Yet her greatest moment came during a slow-crawling rendition of Creedence Clearwater Revival's "Fortunate Son," which proved protest needn't always be shouted.

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Song Stories

“Piano Man”

Billy Joel | 1973

Billy Joel’s first hit, “Piano Man,” was – ironically – an autobiographical lament about how his first album wasn’t a hit. When Cold Spring Harbor didn’t take off, Joel briefly became a lounge pianist in Los Angeles, and this song, about that experience, expressed his frustrations and fears at the time: “And they sit at the bar and put bread in my jar/And say, ‘Man, what are you doing here?’” “It was all right,” Joel said later, about the gig. “I got free drinks and union scale, which was the first steady money I’d made in a long time.”

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