| My Life |
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This song is all about being independent and perhaps doing things a little differently with much the same outcome as everyone else. This was the theme song for the favorite eighty’s comedy “Boston Buddies”. The vocals are not Billy Joel’s but rather another similar sounding singer had to come in due to the rights on the tune. This song is very appropriate to this series which it is about, Peter Scolari and Tom Hanks who are two roommates and they dress up as women so that they can stay in the women’s only establishment, The Susan B. Anthony, which is named after a famous women’s liberation activist, when their house burns down. This is not the last Tom Hanks has seen of this song. In fact in an episode of 30 Rock he also sang it after mocking himself. Peter Cetera and Donni Dacus from the group Chicago have joined Joel in the chorus to sing the backing vocals which harmonize very well with the lead vocal. In the first verse there is reference to closing up and living on the West Coast. This apparently refers to the comedian Richard Lewis who would have been in the catchment area of Joel’s influence at the time, being born in New York and brought up in New Jersey. These lyrics also feature in a rock album “Number One” from one of Britain’s bands, ‘A’ giving Joel some credits. Billy Joel and Elton John are the two well known pianists in the music industry and both had received hits on the Billboard Top40. ‘My Life’ was Joel’s seventh hit on the chart but between the two it was Elton John who was first to break into the charts 4 years before Billy Joel’s ‘Piano Man’ with his track ‘Your Song’. |