Sleeping With The Television On by Billy Joel

Album: Glass Houses (1980)

License This Song

lyrics

artistfacts

Songfacts®:

Billy Joel talked about the meaning of this album cut from Glass Houses in a 2016 Sirius XM interview, saying, "It's about a guy who's putting a girl down, but he's putting her down because he knows she's going to reject him if he comes onto her. So it's sorta like sour grapes."

The jilted guy tells her if she keeps being so choosy with her companions, she'll end up alone at night with just her TV to keep her company.
The song starts with "The Star-Spangled Banner" fading out and segueing into a channel tone, which used to be the norm when TV stations would sign off for the night and transmit static until morning ("you'll wake up with the white noise"). If Diane, the woman in the song, really did fall asleep with her television on, that's what she would hear.
Glass Houses was not only a #1 album in the US, but also boasted Joel's first #1 hit on the Billboard Hot 100: "It's Still Rock And Roll To Me."

Comments: 1

Annabelle from Eugene, OrI wonder which TV station that Star-Spangled Banner and channel tone come from. It sounds familiar to me.

see more comments

More Songfacts:

Beer Barrel Polka (Roll Out The Barrel)Will Glahe

In 1939, a polka craze swept America thanks to "Beer Barrel Polka (Roll Out The Barrel)."

BloodstreamEd Sheeran

Ed Sheeran's "Bloodstream" was written after an experience taking MDMA during a wedding celebration in Ibiza; it's basically about all the feelings that he got from that time.

"Won't Get Fooled Again" by The Who is about a revolution, but it doesn't have a happy ending, since in the end the new regime becomes just like the old one. Pete Townshend thought that whoever was in power was destined to become corrupt.

Good TimesChic

The disco song "Good Tmes" by Chic was a huge influence on early rap, providing the bassline for "Rapper's Delight."

Dancing QueenABBA

ABBA's Bjorn Ulvaeus and Benny Andersson conceived "Dancing Queen" as a dance song with the working title "Boogaloo," drawing inspiration from the 1974 George McCrae disco hit "Rock Your Baby." Their manager Stig Anderson came up with the title "Dancing Queen."

Uptown FunkMark Ronson

The actress Michelle Pfeiffer gets namechecked in the 2014 megahit "Uptown Funk" ("Michelle Pfeiffer, that white gold"). When it was released, "Riptide" by Vance Joy was on the charts; that song also mentions her ("Closest thing to Michelle Pfeiffer that you've ever seen").