Carl's song "The Grammy"

[Rocker]

Right now I'm listening to the radio broadcast of one of Carl's live shows. The songs (not the strongest to begin with) sound so much better when performed live. Anyway, Carl mentions that "The Grammy" was written about someone famous but it wasn't one of the Beach Boys. Doesn anyone know who it is about?

[Emdeeh]

Billy Joel

[Rocker]

Billy Joel

Oh cool. Is there any interesting story behind it?

[Emdeeh]

Is there any interesting story behind it?

I don't know the story, but I'm sure it's a good one.

[HeyJude]

I'm curious where Carl ever revealed the song was "about" Billy Joel. By 1981, Joel had a won a bunch of Grammys, and my recollection is that he accepted the awards and didn't sneer at them as an institution. I think he even did a "Grammy Legends" thing with them around 1990 or so.

While I know every person connected to the Beach Boys who writes a song ends up being asked if it's about Brian (see "I Write the Songs"), it would not necessarily be a total coincidence that the Beach Boys nor Brian had won a single Grammy by 1981.

I think it's at the "My Father's Place" gig that was broadcast on radio back in 1981 where Carl introduces the song as being "about someone we all know, and we all love." That person being Brian would make a thousand times more sense than Billy Joel. It's not like the BBs were known to have much connection with Billy Joel. Joel had opened for the BBs in the 70s, but I can't imagine *anybody* in the audience of that 1981 gig thought Carl meant Billy Joel.

[Bill M]

I listened to (and recorded) that broadcast live as it happened and the first person I thought of was Billy Joel.

[Emdeeh]

I don't remember the exact source of that info, but it may have been from a print interview with Carl (not all of those are online) or I heard about it at one of the CWF events.

[Rocker]

I'm curious where Carl ever revealed the song was "about" Billy Joel. By 1981, Joel had a won a bunch of Grammys, and my recollection is that he accepted the awards and didn't sneer at them as an institution. I think he even did a "Grammy Legends" thing with them around 1990 or so.

While I know every person connected to the Beach Boys who writes a song ends up being asked if it's about Brian (see "I Write the Songs"), it would not necessarily be a total coincidence that the Beach Boys nor Brian had won a single Grammy by 1981.

I think it's at the "My Father's Place" gig that was broadcast on radio back in 1981 where Carl introduces the song as being "about someone we all know, and we all love." That person being Brian would make a thousand times more sense than Billy Joel.

But Carl makes it clear that it's not about any of the Beach Boys

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1mhe-dY69hQ&list=PLbGlEAG8fDe07ToE5hr4v1c6pq2qt4UY4&index=6

[Tony S]

Billy Joel. PS by the way did you know that when Carl passed away in 1998 Billy Joel dedicated Only the Good die Young that night to him in one of his live performances