“Big Shot” by Billy Joel

"Big Shot" kicks off Billy Joel's 52nd Street, the 1978 album Phil Ramone produced for Columbia, and early the next year it went out as a single, the album's second hit, climbing to 14 in the States. On its face it's a sneer at a woman nursing a brutal hangover after a night of making a fool of herself around town, and it name-checks late-'70s new-money fads like Elaine's restaurant and Halston.

Joel's own story has shifted: in 1996 he said it was about someone very close to him and about himself, in 2006 he denied it was about a date with Bianca Jagger, and in 2010 he told Howard Stern it came out of a dinner with Mick and Bianca Jagger. Joel is on piano, with Liberty DeVitto on drums, Doug Stegmeyer on bass, Steven Abdul Kahn on electric guitar and Richie Cannata on sax.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.