This song is about people who peaked too early: the popular jocks in class who went nowhere in life. Like most of Joel's songs, he composed the music first, which in this case was inspired by The Beatles, specifically the suite of songs on their Abbey Road album where a few unfinished tunes were put together to create one coherent piece.
On an A&E special, Joel said he came up with the "Bottle of white bottle of red" line while he was dining at a restaurant and a waiter actually came up to him and said, "Bottle of white... bottle of red... perhaps a bottle of rosé instead?" The "Things are okay with me these days..." part was an old piece of music he had written a long time before The Stranger album - he just changed the words around to update them. The third part of the song is an old song he had written called "The Ballad of Brenda and Eddie."
Many towns on Joel's stomping grounds of Long Island have a spot or field surrounded by trees called "The village green," similar to the one he sings about here. Joel was in a gang (not a very rough one) in Levittown, Long Island called "The Parkway Green Gang."
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