Paul McCartney to Headline Quebec City's 400th Birthday Party

Paul McCartney will help Quebec City celebrate its 400th anniversary by performing in the French-Canadian province on July 20th. The show is expected to be Macca's only North American concert this year, and his first performance in Canada since 2005. "Music is a good way to celebrate an anniversary like this. It's a universal language which unites everyone," McCartney said in a video message. "Our two countries have historic links which remain important today. We're eager to celebrate this 400th anniversary with Quebec." The former Beatle will perform at the city's Plains of Abraham. Now if only the city can bring the Nordiques back into the NHL, it'd be a real party.

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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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