Leningrad

Named after the Russian city, "Leningrad" follows the lives of two boys who grew up on opposite sides of the Cold War. One of them is Viktor, who had a sad childhood under Soviet rule but found fulfillment entertaining Russian children as a circus clown. The other is Billy Joel, an American kid whose childhood was marked by fear of a Soviet attack but who also found happiness as an entertainer. The song is mostly autobiographical: Joel met Viktor when he toured the Soviet Union in 1987 and, despite being raised to be enemies, they became friends - just like their characters in the song. The pivotal moment came when the clown made Joel's little daughter, Alexa, laugh. He sings: And so my child, and I came to this place To meet him eye to eye and face to face He made my daughter laugh, then we embraced We never knew what friends we had Until we came to Leningrad "The Cold War ended for me when I met this guy," Joel told Sirius XM in 2016. "That was it. I went to meet my enemy, and I actually met my friend."

After the fall of the Soviet Union, Leningrad went back to its original name, Saint Petersburg, in 1991.

In the lyrics, Joel tells us his upbringing in America was different than Viktor's in Russia, but he also expresses the contrast through the music. He told the Orlando Sentinel in 1989: "I put the Russian guy in major keys and the America kid in minor keys. I went for an interesting juxtaposition, because the Russian modality is usually a minor modality. So I reversed it."