Kanye West Gives Back to Iraq War Vets in "Choose or Lose" Special

Kanye West is hooking up with MTV for the new documentary Choose or Lose & Kanye West Present: Homecoming. In the hour-long doc, West and MTV VJ Sway Calloway will go to the homes of recently returned Iraq war veterans to hear their stories about their service and how they're re-acclimating to civilian life. At each stop, West will present the soldiers with a gift, with the rapper paying their rent, taking care of their debt or funding their tuition. "There are hundreds of veterans out there who are falling through the cracks. They make the ultimate sacrifices for us by laying down their lives, but it seems like a lot of them just get forgotten about" said West. "I know my music inspires and helps a lot of people but you can always do more. I teamed up with MTV and took the opportunity to share the spotlight with these veterans and hear their stories." The Choose or Lose special will air on MTV on Monday, July 28th, at 10PM EST.

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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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