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In the Trenches: Live Earth New York

July 8, 2007 12:45 PM ET

What was it like to be in the crowd at Live Earth New York? Check out our video, including live footage of the Police, Roger Waters, Smashing Pumpkins and Kanye West. Plus, meet some of the fans who sweated out eight hours at Giants Stadium to support the cause.

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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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