in a billy joel song?

It was edited for release as a single overseas.

Most resources say a 45 r.p.m. has a maximum length of "about four minutes". I have an old 45 of "Whole Lotta Love" and it says the duration is 5:33 ... but it 's actually a little over three minutes.

By the way, the Billy Joel song you've mentioned is "Scenes From An Italian Restaurant". Great song.

You're confusing two different Billy Joel songs. The "bottle of red, bottle of white" song is entitled "Scenes from an Italian Restaurant". The "Cut it down to 3:05" song is entitled "The Entertainer". It is refering to the record company editing his song down to 3:05 because it ran too long.

"The Entertainer"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZMi37-YgqRM

The name of the song is "Italian Restaurant" off The Stranger album. They probably cut some instrumental out. If I remember correctly, there have been songs longer than 3:05 on 45's. I have a couple of CD's that have cut off stuff (a whole song on one) so an entire double-album can fit on a CD.

It must refer to something else as I have an old Iron Maiden single with a 7 minute track on it, which is probably the maxium or very near it for a single. The problem with vinyl is the more you cram onto it the tighter the grooves have to be which results in a loss of sound quality.