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

Billy Joel nearly left “Just the Way You Are” off his 1977 album *The Stranger*, dismissing it with fellow musicians as a “gloppy ballad” and “a chick song”. Instead, it became his first major hit, reaching the US Top 5 and helping establish one of his best-known songs.

Joel wrote the song for his first wife, Elizabeth, and later said its message was that a partner need not change to please him, though she could change for herself. The couple separated in 1982; Joel joked that songs he wrote for partners seemed to bring a “curse” to those relationships. Paul McCartney later said it was the song he wished he had written, while Frank Sinatra recorded a version that Joel found amusingly similar to his own playful soundcheck rendition.