Disclaimer: "Scenes from an Italian Restaurant" is by Billy Joel.
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
The owner of the Old Italian restaurant loved to watch his patrons come and go. His regulars were his family, and the irregulars always loved the food and hospitality.
You and I - face to
face hm, hm
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.
There were meetings of old friends and he loved to watch them catch up with each other.
Things are okay with
me these days
I got a good job, I got a good office
I got a new
wife, got a new life
And the family is fine
Oh we lost touch
long ago
You lost weight - I did not know
you could ever look
so nice after so much time.
Do 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 a song about New
Orleans
Cold beer, hot lights, my sweet romantic teenage nights
ooh, ooh
But he loved most of all, to listen to the stories. One day, he was talking to a new friend of his, and he asked about his teenage years. The man decided to tell one story only. The owner listened as the picture was painted in front of him.
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.
Two eighteen year olds sat at a table in the back of the diner, sharing a milkshake. Surely, this was true love.
Oh, oh, oh,
oh…..
Brenda and Eddie were still going steady in the summer of
'75
When they decided the marriage would 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 wavin' Brenda and Eddie
goodbye.
Their parents and friends were happy, but of course, Brenda and Eddie seemed too young to get married. They weren't ready yet.
Still, they got married in spite of everything.
Oh, oh, oh
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
but they started to
fight when the money got tight
And they just didn't count on the
tears.
Oh, oh yeah rock 'n roll
Their fairytale life didn't last long, though. They moved into a small apartment and lived well for a little, but neither of them had high paying jobs. There was a lot of fighting, and it was then that they knew that it wouldn't be long.
Oh, oh, oh
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 could never go back there again
They got divorced, but they remained friendly. It didn't work out, and they couldn't make it work.
Oh, oh
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
Oh and that's all I heard about Brenda and Eddie
Can't tell
you more 'cause I've told you already
And here we are wavin'
Brenda and Eddie goodbye
Oh, oh, oh
Oh, oh, oh
Oh, oh, oh
The scene dissolved, and the man's new friend was gone. He smiled and began to clean up.
Yeah
A bottle of
reds, a bottle of whites
Whatever kind of mood you're in
tonight
I'll meet you anytime you want
In our Italian
Restaurant.
