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
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
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- Greatest Hits, Volume I & Volume II (1985)
- The Essential Billy Joel (2001)
- Piano Man: Very Best of (2004)
- Live at Carnegie Hall 1977 (2019)
- We Didn’t Start the Fire
- Piano Man
- Vienna
- Uptown Girl
- The Longest Time
- She’s Always a Woman
- Movin’ Out (Anthony’s Song)
- Just the Way You Are
- Only the Good Die Young
- Scenes from an Italian Restaurant
- New York State of Mind
- Allentown
- Honesty
- The Stranger
- Goodnight Saigon
- My Life
- It’s Still Rock and Roll to Me
- Lullabye (Goodnight, My Angel)
- And So it Goes
- Big Shot
- Captain Jack
- An Innocent Man
- Zanzibar
- The Downeaster “Alexa”