Lupe Fiasco Discusses Collaborations, Retirement and the Housing Market

Chicago hip-hop phenom Lupe Fiasco recently stopped by the Rock Daily offices to jaw about meeting up with Patrick Stump, CRS (his newish project with Kanye West and Pharrell) and the themes he explores on his excellent new magnum opus The Cool.

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  VIDEOS Exclusive Premiere: Tenacious D's 'Tinnitus'

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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