The Stranger

The Stranger was Billy Joel's fifth album, but it was the first I became aware of him, as it spawned many hits and brought his great songs of his earlier career, such as "Piano Man," "Captain Jack," and "New York State Of Mind" to my awareness only in retrospect.

Released in 1977, The Stranger doesn't have a bad song on it, and is full of songs that have become part of his basic repertoire. "Just The Way You Are," his first top ten hit, is a great love song that is now featured at many a wedding, with the plainspoken lyric:

"I said I love you and that's forever
And this I promise from the heart
I could not love you any better
I love you just the way you are"

Of course, and this is so familiar, it was written for a woman he has long since divorced.

On the flip side, we get "Only The Good Die Young," which caused some controversy as it is about a boy who is begging his Catholic girlfriend to yield her virginity. It wasn't a big hit at the Vatican, I'm sure, though it might have been secretly played by Catholic schoolgirls:

"Come out Virginia, don't let me wait
You Catholic girls start much too late
Aw, but sooner or later it comes down to fate
I might as well be the one
Only the good die young."

Another big hit was "Movin' Out," which takes the position that making career advancement is not always a good thing, with a few examples. It also makes a put down of Hackensack:

"Anthony works in the grocery store
Savin' his pennies for someday
Mama Leone left a note on the door
She said "Sonny, move out to the country"
Workin' too hard can give you a heart attack-ack-ack-ack-ack-ack
You oughta know by now (you oughta know by now)
Who needs a house out in Hackensack
Is that all you get for your money"

Now this is a man who is now a multimillionaire who lives in far better places than Hackensack. But maybe he didn't work too hard for the money.

My favorite songs are the longest. "Scenes From An Italian Restaurant" is like a short story, two old friends meeting at their favorite place for some wine and conversation. It has several movements to it, including their reminiscence about the most popular couple in school:

"Brenda and Eddie were the popular steadies
And the king and the queen of the prom
Riding around with the car top down
And the radio on
Nobody looked any finer
Or was more of a hit at the Parkway Diner
We never knew we could want more than that out of life
Surely Brenda and Eddie would always know how to survive"

Of course, Brenda and Eddie were done "by the summer of '75," as Joel reminds us that love doesn't necessarily win out, though he is a romantic, as evidenced by the closing track, the hauntingly beautiful "Everybody Has A Dream." His is simple:

"I know that everybody has a dream
Everybody has a dream
And this is my dream, my own
Just to be at home
And to be all alone...with you"

Though Joel was firmly in the world of rock and roll, and was often compared to Bruce Springsteen, perhaps mostly due to being contemporaries and from the Tri-State area, Joel had stronger ties to the American songbook--he was much closer aligned to Tin Pan Alley that The Stone Pony. I think Joel would have been right at home in the days of Cole Porter and the Gershwins, but he happened to come along when rock was king, and that's what he wrote. But his best songs, like "Piano Man," have less to say about the rebellious nature of rock than the universal feelings of loneliness and loss. Joel wasn't really a rebel, he was a troubadour.