Billy Joel fans were understandably upset after many CBS stations across the country cut away from the legendary performer in the middle of everyone’s favorite sing-along Joel song Piano Man in his first-ever broadcast television concert special on Sunday night to celebrate his 100th show at Madison Square Garden.
Luckily, there are ample lyrics from the prolific Joel library to describe all the feels fans were having, and the Billy Joel song puns started flowing in quite poetically to put a little silver lining on the concert debacle.
Obviously Piano Man was a popular one to cite, given the fact that was the song playing during the offending cutaway. One popular tweet noted “Evidently, CBS was no longer in the mood for a melody.
Journalists also got in on the fun in their coverage, with Billboard noting “Billy Joel Fans Not Feeling Alright” following the interruption.
Another tweeter lamented that she was unable to “forget about life for a while” due to the broadcast fail.
Another spirited tweeter had some spoofing fun with an entire stanza: “Sing us a half-song, you’re the Piano Man / Sing us a half-song tonight / Cause we all heard a part of a melody / And CBS producers aren’t bright.”
And when the Piano Man lyrics dried up, punsters had plenty of other options to choose from.
HuffPost cleverly noted that fans had been waiting “for the longest time” to hear the concert with it starting a half hour behind schedule to begin with due to the extend coverage of The Masters.
Another popular tweet saw a user posting a GIF of Billy Joel flipping over a table from his popular We Didn’t Start the Fire music video, with the witty caption “Accurate depiction of me getting up from the couch after CBS cut off Piano Man.”
Yet another popular refrain was to tell CBS to “turn the lights back on” after the screen cut to black.
You get the idea. Billy Joel has provided substantial material over the years for just such an occasion like this, and fans didn’t shy away from making lemonade out of lemons. You may be right to be mad, but fans finding a creative outlet for their anger like this is still rock and roll to me.