Why Billy Joel Almost Passed on Recording What Became His First Hit Single in 1977

In 1977, Billy Joel released “Just The Way You Are”. On his The Stranger record, Joel wrote this song, and all of the songs on The Stranger, by himself. 

By the time “Just The Way You Are” was released, Joel already had moderate hits like “Piano Man”, his first Top 30 single, and “The Entertainer, which reached the Top 40. Still, it’s “Just The Way You Are” that became Joel’s first big hit, reaching the Top 5.

The sweet song says in part, “I would not leave you in times of trouble / We never could have come this far / I took the good times, I’ll take the bad times / I’ll take you just the way you are.” 

A trademark Joel song to this day, he later revealed that he almost passed on releasing this song.

“We almost didn’t put it on an album,” Joel admitted, calling it a “gloppy ballad”. “We were sitting around listening to it going, ‘Nah, that’s a chick song.’”

What Billy Joel Says About Writing “Just The Way You Are”

Joel was inspired to write “Just The Way You Are” by his first wife, Elizabeth. Sadly, the relationship did not last, and the couple split in 1982.

“Every time I wrote a song for a person I was in a relationship with, it didn’t last,” Joel later says. “It was kind of like the curse. Here’s your song – we might as well say goodbye now.”

Joel also later said some people misunderstood this song, thinking it was telling a woman she could not change.

“No, no, no. Don’t go changing to try and please me,” Joel explained. “People forget these things. If they don’t like what I do, they’ll go, ‘Oh yeah, he hates women. Look at this. Don’t change, stay the way you are, the same old someone that he knew. Wow, he really doesn’t like her.’”

“Don’t change for me,” he added. “You wanna change for yourself, fine. But you don’t have to change for me because I’m happy exactly the way you are. That’s why I love you in the first place.”

Paul McCartney later said this is the one song he wishes he had written. Frank Sinatra also recorded a version of “Just The Way You Are”, to the amusement of Joel.

“When we have a soundcheck, we always send up my own material,” Joel later says. “And we do ‘Just The Way You Are’ with this cheesy Las Vegas swing and make a whole joke of the thing, and Sinatra did it exactly the same way.”

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