Root Beer Rag
| "Root Beer Rag" | ||||||||||
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Label to the US single release as B-side of "Big Shot"
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| Single by Billy Joel | ||||||||||
| from the album Streetlife Serenade | ||||||||||
| A-side | "Big Shot" (US) "Until the Night" (UK) "Honesty" (Japan & others) |
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| Released | October 11, 1974 (album) 1979 (single) |
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| Recorded | Devonshire Sound, North Hollywood, CA | |||||||||
| Genre | Ragtime | |||||||||
| Length | 2:59 | |||||||||
| Label | Columbia Records | |||||||||
| Writer(s) | Billy Joel | |||||||||
| Producer(s) | Michael Stewart | |||||||||
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"Root Beer Rag" is a song from Billy Joel's 1974 album Streetlife Serenade. An instrumental track in a very fast ragtime style, it was later released as the B-side of several singles from Joel's 52nd Street album, including "Big Shot" in the US, "Until the Night" in the UK, and "Honesty" in Japan and some European countries. A live version was included with the DVD that was part of the 30th anniversary re-release of The Stranger.
The song is in C major and is one of three studio instrumentals that Joel has released. Joel has played the song in concert frequently over the years, stating that he uses it as "a kind of instrumental palate cleanser." He further stated that it requires his "full attention as the notes spill out."
Author Ken Bielen describes "Root Beer Rag" as a fast ragtime piano work. Joel biographer Hank Bordowitz describes the song as "homebrewed ragtime". Music critic Mark Bego describes it as Joel "doing his best Scott Joplin impersonation" and "his one recorded ragtime number."
In response to an audience question about the song's origin during one of Joel's musical lectures, he gave the following explanation:
I got my first Moog Synthesizer. This was in the mid 70s and I got my first Moog and I put it on every record. I said 'I have to write an instrumental where I can use this Moog Synthesizer. It kinda turned me off the synthesizers forever after. That's why I wrote that song. Just purely out of stupid self-indulgence.
However, Joel did feature synthesizers on subsequent albums, including Turnstiles (1976), The Stranger (1977) - as credited in the liner notes and there is a Mellotron on "She's Always a Woman" - Glass Houses (1980), The Nylon Curtain (1982), The Bridge (1986), Storm Front (1989) and River of Dreams (1993).
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