Decemberists to Release Outtakes EP

The Decemberists, 'Long Live the King'

EMI Music

The Decemberists will follow up their Number One hit album The King is Dead with a new EP of b-sides and outtakes titled Long Live the King. The set, due out on November 1st, will include a cover of the Grateful Dead's "Row Jimmy" and "E. Watson," a number featuring backing vocals by Laura Veirs and Annalisa Tornfelt. The set will also feature a demo track titled "I 4 U  & U 4 Me," which is – believe it or not! – not a Prince cover but an original composition.

Here is the track list for Long Live the King:

"E. Watson"
"Foregone"
"Burying Davy"
"I 4 U & U 4 Me"
"Row Jimmy"
"Sonnet"

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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.”

More Song Stories entries »

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