Billy Joel is not an artist typically known to make grand political statements. That being said, last night, during his monthly residence at Madison Square Garden, the “Piano Man” said a whole lot without saying anything at all. During the encore, Joel walked out onstage wearing a large, yellow, Star Of David, the same kind that the Nazis forced the Jews to wear during the height of the holocaust around World War II.
Apparently, the singer was just as impacted by the events that took place at Charlottesville where a group of White Supremacists clashed with counter-protestors that left one woman dead.
Billy Joel doing is encores at MSG on 8/21 wearing one Jewish Star on his breast and another on his back. He is a true hero. pic.twitter.com/M42f6P1f8J
— Eric Schultz (@EBS9291) August 22, 2017
“I try to stay out of politics,” Joel told Rolling Stone back in June. “I am a private citizen and I have a right to believe in my own political point of view, but I try not to get up on a soapbox and tell people how to think.”
“I’ve been to shows where people start haranguing the audience about what’s going on politically and I’m thinking, ‘You know, this isn’t why I came here.’ As a matter of fact, one of the biggest cheers of the night comes when we do ‘Piano Man”‘and I sing, ‘They know that it’s me that they’re coming to see to forget about life for a while,’ and the audience lets out this huge ‘ahhhh.'”
Apparently, Joel draws the line about forgetting life for a while at Nazis.
