Angry Young Man

Billy Joel’s parents were passionate about music.  It seems fitting that they met in New York City at a performance of a Gilbert and Sullivan musical.

Billy’s father was an engineer by trade but had also studied as a classical pianist.  In an interview with the San Diego Union-Tribune, Billy recalled, “My dad would play classical pieces on our old upright piano at home.  He’d play Beethoven, Chopin, Rachmaninoff.  I’d listen from another room and think it was beautiful.”

Billy’s mother loved to sing.  But her crucial influence was seeing to it that her son learned to play the piano.  That emphasis on the arts in young Billy’s life obviously paved the way for his success as a musician, but it also inadvertently trained him to be tough and not afraid to fight back when necessary.

As he recently explained to 60 Minutes Australia, “The first piano teacher I had also taught ballet:  Miss Francis.  I had to walk down the street to the piano teacher with my piano books, and there was always a couple of guys on my way who’d say, ‘Hey!  Where’s your tutu?  Hey, Ballet Boy.’  I got bullied.  So I started to box.  To learn how to take care of myself.”

In fact, as a teenager, Billy did quite well on the amateur Golden Gloves circuit winning 22 bouts…until he eventually got his nose broken in a fight and decided he’d had enough of boxing.

“I liked it.  I mean, I was a teenager.  When you’re a teenager, you’ve got a lot of hostility.  And then I started to have sex.  And I realized, I’m not so hostile anymore.”