Just The Way You Are — Billy Joel
Not to be confused with the Bruno Mars song of the same title, Billy Joel’s “Just The Way You Are” was a double Grammy Award winner, picking up Record of the Year and Song of the Year in 1979.
It’s also the first Billy Joel song I remember hearing. He’d had some success with “Piano Man” a few years earlier, but that didn’t go near the charts in the UK and I don’t remember hearing it on pop music radio until many years later, after “Piano Man” had reached “oldie” status.
“Just The Way You Are” was the first single released from Billy Joel’s album “The Stranger”, which really launched his career as one of the world’s biggest music acts.
“The Stranger” was also the first album I owned. I got it as a Christmas present in, I guess 1977 or 1978. I was learning the piano at the time and adored Elton John, so my parents tried to broaden my tastes a little with some Billy Joel.
I adored “The Stranger”. I particularly fell in love with “Vienna”, but I pretty much wore out the grooves on the whole album during that year’s Christmas holiday. My parents pretended not to mind.
“Just The Way You Are” is a plea to a partner not to feel the need to change how she is to please him, and for her to leave him to be as he is too.
