Talk:Miami 2017 (Seen the Lights Go Out on Broadway)

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Date?[edit]

Any specific meaning to the year?

I figured it would be a clean 50 years from when he wrote it, or a perfect transposition of the year [71->17], but it is neither. Why 41 years? Did he just pluck it out of a hat? 216.50.220.11 (talk) 06:02, 8 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Perhaps he was inspired by L.A. 2017, an episode of the TV show The Name of the Game, aired in January 1971, which portrayed a dystopian West Coast future. --Klantry01 (talk) 17:18, 3 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Article talk pages, like this one, are for discussing possible improvements to the associated articles. They are not for general discussion of the topic. - SummerPhD (talk) 23:39, 3 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Possible allusion to Kurt Vonnegut's novel, Slapstick[edit]

In the above-mentioned novel, Manhattan is deserted, due to two plagues raging there. Just thought I'd mention it, as Mr. Joel said it was a "sci-fi" song. 65.248.164.214 (talk) 19:48, 4 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I find it hard to believe that he isn't referring to the NY Yankees[edit]

Several people have deleted any mention that according to the song lyrics, a carrier is sent up from Norfolk Naval Base to pick up the New York Yankees baseball team. At least twice, there has been an insistence that the lyrics "and picked the Yankees up for free" is just referring to New Yorkers generally as Northerners.

I find this explanation pretty implausible unless Joel has said this himself. For one, the lyrics suggest that the boats waiting at Battery Park -- the ones that never sailed because of a strike -- were how people were meant to leave the city. Unless the carrier is mentioned as some sort of contingency plan (not the type of thing you'd really expect to find in these lyrics) it is clearly meant for someone else. Moreover, the lyrics are laced with cynicism from the get-go. It's pretty clear that Joel is highlighting preferential treatment for the millionaires here (why else mention that it was "for free?") Plus this is a U.S. military vessel -- the state of Virginia isn't doing New York a favor here or anything.

It would be very odd phrasing if he meant anything other than the New York Yankees baseball team. 192.197.178.2 (talk) 15:58, 10 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Someone just added this again. I edited their change to include both theories. This gets close to violating WP:NOR, but unless both theories are stated on the main page, future editors will continue to war over this. It seems more civil to simply state both theories, until and unless someone has an authoritative source. — Lawrence King ^(talk) 00:49, 16 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Allusion to "The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway"[edit]

I deleted the following statement from this article:

The lyrics also reference the Genesis concept album The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway (which is also set in New York City) and its title song.

Without a statement from Billy Joel to this effect, I think this is pure speculation.

Moreover, it seems unlikely. The only lyrics on this Genesis album that have any connection to Joel's song are the following:

The line "The lamb lies down on Broadway" (repeated several times in the title song).
The line "They say the lights are always bright on Broadway" (at the end of the title song). This line was not written by Genesis: it is taken from the famous song "On Broadway" by The Drifters.
The line "The light dies down on Broadway" (on side four of the album).

Compare these to Joel's lines:

"I've seen the lights go out on Broadway" (repeated several times).
"I've seen the lights go down on Broadway" -- although you can find this line in some online lyrics at the beginning of the fifth verse of Joel's song, this line does not actually appear in any of Bill Joel's versions -- not the demo, not the studio version, not the various live versions. All these versions use the same line as before in verse five ("I've seen the lights go out on Broadway"), except for some live versions, which have "I've seen the rats lie down on Broadway".
"You know those lights were bright on Broadway".

So it is hard to see how the Genesis song could have influenced Joel. The only connection in the studio version of Miami 2017 is the line that both of them took from the Drifters' song. Perhaps Joel's use of "the rats lie down on Broadway" in the live versions was influenced by Genesis' lyrics -- after all, when you think of rats, you usually don't think of them lying down. But I think we need evidence before saying that the influence is here. — Lawrence King ^(talk) 02:42, 13 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Single?[edit]

Was this song released as a single? It was recently added to the single section of the Billy Joel template, and the infobox on this article includes 7". However, there's nothing in the article text to say it was a single, and it's not part of the Billy Joel singles chronolgy on other pages. Thoughts? GoingBatty (talk) 16:41, 3 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

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