Inspiration
Joel wrote the song after returning to the East Coast from Los Angeles, where he had spent the previous three years. In fact, most of Turnstiles deals with Joel's cross-country relocation, including "Say Goodbye to Hollywood", "I've Loved These Days", "Summer, Highland Falls", and "Miami 2017 (Seen the Lights Go Out on Broadway)."
The inspiration for the song came from his pride in returning home to New York. Joel was literally "takin' a Greyhound on the Hudson River Line " when the idea for the song came to him, and the song was written as soon as Joel arrived home.
Read more about this topic: New York State Of Mind
Famous quotes containing the word inspiration:
“For a painter, the Mecca of the world, for study, for inspiration and for living is here on this star called Paris. Just look at it, no wonder so many artists have come here and called it home. Brother, if you can’t paint in Paris, you’d better give up and marry the boss’s daughter.”
—Alan Jay Lerner (1918–1986)
“What is called eloquence in the forum is commonly found to be rhetoric in the study. The orator yields to the inspiration of a transient occasion, and speaks to the mob before him, to those who can hear him; but the writer, whose more equable life is his occasion, and who would be distracted by the event and the crowd which inspire the orator, speaks to the intellect and heart of mankind, to all in any age who can understand him.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“The ironies in the commonplace are my inspiration and delight.”
—Mason Cooley (b. 1927)