Os Mutantes Confirm First New Album in 35 Years on Anti-

Brazilian psychedelia pioneers Os Mutantes have inked a new record deal with Anti-, Pitchfork reports, and will release Haih — their first album in 35 years — on September 8th. The Tropicalia legends made their U.S. live debut in 2006, sharing the stage with the Flaming Lips' Wayne Coyne at the Hollywood Bowl. (The band famously turned down Kurt Cobain's request to perform with him in 1993, and Beck and David Byrne are among their other famous fans.) Founding singer Rita Lee didn't participate in the group's 2006 tour — their first since 1973 — and is reportedly not on the new album, which features collaborations with Tom Zé and Jorge Ben. The band is also on the lineup for this summer's Outside Lands Festival.

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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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