Dennis Wilson's "Pacific Ocean Blue" Resurfaces

Much has always been made about the complicated psychology and tormented life of Brian Wilson, but he wasn't the only Beach Boy torturned by demons and capable of producing a masterpiece. Drummer Dennis Wilson struggled with alcohol and family problems but managed to produce the recently re-released lost classic Pacific Ocean Blue. "Dennis spent all those years with Brian as his teacher," says Gregg Jacobson, who co-wrote most of the songs on Pacific Ocean Blue. "He had the same gene-pool talent as his brothers. He just sat on his until it finally bubbled over." Click below for more on Pacific Ocean Blue.

• Dennis Wilson's Pacific Ocean Blue Resurfaces

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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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