Released: September 29, 1977

Songwriter: Billy Joel

Producer: Phil Ramone

[Intro]
A bottle of white, a bottle of red
Perhaps a bottle of rosé instead
We'll get a table near the street
In our old familiar place
You and I, face to face, mmm
A bottle of red, a bottle of white
It all depends upon your appetite
I'll meet you any time you want
In our Italian restaurant

[Segue]

[Verse 1]
Things are okay with me these days
Got a good job, got a good office
Got a new wife, got a new life
And the family is fine
Oh, lost touch long ago
You lost weight, I did not know
You could ever look so nice
After so much time

[Verse 2]
You remember those days
Hanging out at the Village Green?
Engineer boots, leather jackets
And tight blue jeans
Oh, you drop a dime in the box
Play the song about New Orleans
Cold beer, hot lights
My sweet romantic teenage nights

[Segue]

[Verse 3]
Brenda and Eddie were the popular steadies
And the king and the queen of the prom
Riding around with the car top down
And the radio on
Nobody looked any finer
Or was more of a hit at the Parkway Diner
We never knew we could want
More than that out of life
Surely Brenda and Eddie
Would always know how to survive

[Verse 4]
Brenda and Eddie were still going steady
In the summer of '75
When they decided their marriage
Should be at the end of July
Everyone said they were crazy
"Brenda you know that you're much too lazy
And Eddie could never afford
To live that kind of life."
Oh but there we were waving
Brenda and Eddie goodbye

[Verse 5]
Well, they got an apartment
With deep pile carpets
And a couple of paintings from Sears
A big waterbed that they
Bought with the bread
They had saved for a couple of years
They started to fight
When the money got tight
And they just didn't count on the tears

[Bridge]
Yeah, rock and roll!

[Verse 6]
Well, they lived for a while in a very nice style
But it's always the same in the end
They got a divorce as a matter of course
And they parted the closest of friends
Then the king and the queen
Went back to the green
But you can never go back there again

[Verse 7]
Brenda and Eddie had had it already
By the summer of '75
From the high to the low
To the end of the show
For the rest of their lives
They couldn't go back to the Greasers
The best they could do
Was pick up their pieces
We always knew they would
Both find a way to get by
And that's all I heard about Brenda and Eddie
Can't tell you more 'cause I told you already
And here we are waving
Brenda and Eddie goodbye

[Segue]

[Outro]
Bottle of red, bottle of white
Whatever kind of mood you're in tonight
I'll meet you anytime you want
In our Italian restaurant

Billy Joel

Billy Joel (born May 9, 1949) is an American pianist, singer/songwriter, producer, and composer who ranks as one of the most iconic and influential artists from the mid to late 20th century.

He is the sixth best-selling recording artist and the third best-selling solo artist in the United States, wrote a total of 121 songs that achieved 33 Top 40 hits in the US, a 6-time Grammy winner out of 23 nominations, and one of the best-selling recording artists of all-time with 150 million albums sold worldwide.

Joel has since continued to tour and sells out in stadiums globally. He also delved into classical music composition, arranging an album, Fantasies and Delusions released in 2001, opened a motorcycle shop on his native Long Island, and is now regarded as one of the most influential musicians of the 20th century. Among his numerous accolades, he was inducted in the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1992, bestowed with the Kennedy Center Honors in 2013, and awarded the Gershwin Prize for Popular Song by the Library of Congress in 2014.