Keith Richards Recovering from Eye Surgery

Keith Richards attends the 3rd Annual Norman Mailer Center Gala at the Mandarin Oriental Hotel in New York.

Joe Corrigan/Getty Images

Keith Richards has undergone laser eye surgery and is "doing very well," says a spokesperson for the Rolling Stones guitarist. Richards underwent the procedure to correct his vision, which has been deteriorating in recent years.

Richards' surgery may have been done at this time to prepare for a Rolling Stones 50th anniversary tour later this year, which has been heavily rumored but has yet to be confirmed by the band.

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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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