‘Arrow’: Thanksgiving Episode To Feature The Music Of Billy Joel

On the upcoming Thanksgiving episode of 'Arrow,' singer-songwriter Billy Joel will be making an appearance via real life concert footage.

Stephen Amell Arrow

Singer-songwriter Billy Joel is taking his talents from New York to Star City in the upcoming Thanksgiving episode of Arrow. 

The episode is set to involve hacker Caylen James (played by Michael Emmerson) threatening to blow up a concert. Rather than feature a fictional Arrowverse musician, the show’s creators were able to get permission to use real life concert footage from one of the Piano Man’s shows.

Executive producer Marc Guggenheim, who happens to be a big Billy Joel fan, wrote a letter to the musician asking him if he would allow for his music to be used on Arrow. The original script had Joel written in as a placeholder, but to the delight of Guggenheim and the other show runners, they were given the green light.

“For the Thanksgiving episode of Arrow, we wanted Cayden James to threaten a major event at Star City,” Guggenheim says. “A variety of ideas were discussed, but when we settled on a rock concert, I knew it had to be Billy Joel.

Having grown up on Long Island — where, as it happens, this episode’s concert footage was taken from — I’ve been a fan of Billy and his music since I was 7 years old,” Guggenheim says. “He’s always been an inspiration to me, personally and artistically. I told him as much when I wrote to him to ask for his permission to use his concert footage in our episode and when he agreed, it was one of the happiest days of my career. I chose ‘No Man’s Land’ for the episode because I wanted to use an album track and I’ve always liked how that particular song sounds live.”

The episode in question, which is appropriately entitled “Thanksgiving,” will premiere this Thursday night.

Arrow stars Stephen Amell as Oliver Queen, Emily Bett Rickards as Felicity Smoak, David Ramsey as John Diggle, Willa Holland as Thea Queen, Paul Blackthorne as Quentin Lance, Juliana Harkavy as Dinah Drake, Rick Gonzalez as Rene Ramirez, Echo Kellum as Curtis Holt and Katie Cassidy as Laurel Lance.

Arrow airs on Thursdays at 9/8c on The CW.

Source: Entertainment Weekly