Exclusive Audio: Norah Jones

Angel-voiced enchantress Norah Jones recently Q&Aed with our Austin Scaggs and discussed her support of Barack Obama, being Blue Note's highest-selling artist and how sudden success overwhelmed her. We were so captivated by her voice, we figured we'd share some audio excerpts for your listening pleasure:

On her favorite Nirvana song and performing with Dave Grohl.

On why her lyrics are decidedly anti-Bush.

On her "unpunk" punk band side-project.

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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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