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Billy Joel - Only The Good Die Young

Billy Joel - Only The Good Die Young Lyrics and Youtube Music Videos

Album: The Stranger
Released: 1977

Only The Good Die Young Lyrics

Come out Virginia, don't let 'em wait
You Catholic girls start much too late
Aw but sooner or later it comes down to faith
Oh I might as well be the one

Well, they showed you a statue, told you to pray
They built you a temple and locked you away
Aw, but they never told you the price that you pay
For things that you might have done
Only The Good Die Young
That's what I said
Only the good die young
Only the good die young

You might have heard I run with a dangerous crowd
We ain't too pretty we ain't too proud
We might be laughing a bit too loud
Aw but that never hurt no one

So come on Virginia show me a sign
Send up a signal and I'll throw you the line
The stained-glass curtain you're hiding behind
Never let's in the sun
Darlin' only the good die young
Woah
I tell ya
Only the good die young
Only the good die young

You got a nice white dress and a party on your confirmation
You got a brand new soul
Mmm, and a cross of gold
But Virginia they didn't give you quite enough information
You didn't count on me
When you were counting on your rosary
(Oh woah woah)

They say there's a heaven for those who will wait
Some say it's better but I say it ain't
I'd rather laugh with the sinners than cry with the saints
The sinners are much more fun

You know that only the good die young
I tell ya
Only the good die young
Only the good die young

Well your mother told you all that I could give you was a reputation
Aw she never cared for me
But did she ever say a prayer for me? oh woah woah

Come out come out come out Virginia don't let 'em wait
You Catholic girls start much too late
Oh sooner or later it comes down to faith
Oh I might as well be the one
You know that only the good die young

I'm telling you baby
You know that only the good die young
Only the good die young
Only the good
Only the good die young

Writer/s: JOEL, BILLY
Publisher: Universal Music Publishing Group
Lyrics licensed and provided by LyricFind

Only The Good Die Young

Virginia was Virginia Callaghan, a girl Billy had a crush on when he first started playing in a band. She didn't even know he existed until she saw him in a gig, but thirteen years later he used her as the main character in this song about a Catholic girl who won't have premarital sex.

Many musicians join bands to meet girls, but few overachieve the way Joel did, dating models and even marrying one of them (Christie Brinkley). Virginia Callaghan was the first of these girls that thought differently of Joel when she saw him perform. Billy explained to Uncut in 1998: "I originally started in bands just to meet girls – it was round the time The Beatles first hit America – but I didn't know you could actually make a living out of it. My first gig was in a church, about '64 – we did Beatles songs, and this girl I had a crush on, Virginia Callaghan, who normally wouldn't look twice at me, just stared at me through the whole gig. And I thought, 'This is so cool!' And then all these other girls were lookin' at me as well. Then, at the end of the night, the priest comes up and gives us like 15 dollars apiece, which in '64 was a fortune! Girls and money! Man, I was hooked."

This song was originally recorded with a Reggae groove, which can be heard on some bootlegs that were inadvertently leaked via drummer Liberty DeVito's camp. DeVito didn't like the Reggae beat, which is why Joel changed it. (thanks, Barry Kesten - Bellmore, United States)

This didn't do very well until church officials around the US heard it and condemned the song. The controversy was great publicity and sent the song up the charts. Joel recalled to the Metro newspaper July 6, 2006 about the controversy stirred up by this number: "That song was released as a single back in 1977, I think. It was not really doing very well, just languishing in the charts. Then it was banned by a radio station in New Jersey at a Catholic university. The minute the kids found out it was banned, they ran out in droves and it became a huge hit. If you tell kids they can't have something, that's what they want. I don't understand the problem with the song. It's about a guy trying to seduce a girl but, at the end of the song, she's still chaste and pure and he hasn't got anything. So I never understood what the furor was about. But I did write a letter to the archdiocese who'd banned it, asking them to ban my next record."

Joel told USA Today July 9, 2008: "Jewish guilt is visceral it's in the stomach. Catholic guilt is in the belfry of the cerebrum, it's gothic and its got incense, bells tolling, and it has all to do with sin. I wanted to write a song about it, about a guy trying to seduce a Catholic girl. I don't know what all the fuss was about, because she stayed chaste. I remember taking it over to the drummer, Liberty (DeVitto). 'Well, it's true,' he said, 'but I don't know how people are going to respond to it!"

Melissa Etheridge did a particularly prurient version of this song at a 2014 Billy Joel town hall event hosted by Howard Stern. Etheridge explained that she grew up playing Joel's songs in piano bars and cover bands, but she never had the chance to perform this one, which was one of her favorites. She explained: "It was the end of the '70s, and a girl could not sing this song. But of all of his songs, this one really resonated with me. When I was a senior in high school, it hit really close to home. The song is about pure lust. It's the physical, carnal pleasure: let's do it."

Billy Joel - Just The Way You Are

Billy Joel - Just The Way You Are Lyrics and Youtube Music Videos

Album: The Stranger
Released: 1977

Just The Way You Are Lyrics

Don't go changing to try and please me
You never let me down before
Don't imagine you're too familiar
And I don't see you anymore

I wouldn't 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

Don't go trying some new fashion
Don't change the color of your hair
You always have my unspoken passion
Although I might not seem to care

I don't want clever conversation
I never want to work that hard
I just want someone that I can talk to
I want you just the way you are

I need to know that you will always be
The same old someone that I knew
What will it take till you believe in me
The way that I believe in you?

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

Writer/s: JOEL, BILLY
Publisher: Universal Music Publishing Group
Lyrics licensed and provided by LyricFind

Just The Way You Are Song Chart

Joel wrote this song about his first wife, Elizabeth. A pure expression of unconditional love, he gave it to her as a birthday present.

Sadly, after nine years of marriage, Joel and Elizabeth divorced in 1982. Joel's next two marriages didn't work out either: he was married to Christie Brinkley from 1985-1994, and to Katie Lee from 2004-2010.

"Every time I wrote a song for a person I was in a relationship with, it didn't last," Joel said. "It was kind of like the curse. Here's your song - we might as well say goodbye now."

This won Grammy Awards for Song of the Year and Record of the Year at the 1979 ceremony. It was a breakthrough for Joel, whose biggest hit to this point was "Piano Man," which reached #25 in the US.

Joel told USA Today July 9, 2008: "I was absolutely surprised it won a Grammy. It wasn't even rock 'n' roll, it was like a standard with a little bit of R&B in it. It reminded me of an old Stevie Wonder recording." (thanks, Bertrand - Paris, France)

After Joel recorded this, he didn't think much of it, considering it a "gloppy ballad" that would only get played at weddings. He credits his producer, Phil Ramone, with convincing him that it was a great song. Ramone brought Linda Ronstadt and Phoebe Snow into the recording studio to hear the song, and of course they loved it, which was good enough for Billy. On Australian TV in 2006, Joel confirmed: "We almost didn't put it on an album. We were sitting around listening to it going naaah, that's a chick song."

Phil Woods, who is a prominent jazz player, played the alto saxophone for this song. (thanks, Alex - Grand Blanc, MI)

Barry White's cover version hit #12 in the UK in 1978. The song was also covered by Frank Sinatra and Isaac Hayes, whose version is in 6/8 time with a long introductory rap.

Joel played a Fender Rhodes electric piano on this track, using the instrument's phase shifter effect. This same setup can be heard on the Paul Simon song "Still Crazy After All These Years."

This was the first single off The Stranger, which was Billy Joel's sixth album.

On a July 16, 2006 blog for the Australian newspaper The Herald Sun, Joel said that he dreamt the melody and chord progression and wrote the lyrics over a few days after the dream recurred. He added that the drum pattern was suggested by his producer at the time, Phil Ramone.

Joel expanded to USA Today: "I dreamt the melody, not the words. I remember waking up in the middle of the night and going, 'This is a great idea for a song.' A couple of weeks later, I'm in a business meeting, and the dream reoccurs to me right at that moment because my mind had drifted off from hearing numbers and legal jargon. And I said, 'I have to go!' I got home and I ended up writing it all in one sitting, pretty much. It took me maybe two or three hours to write the lyrics."

This was Joel's first chart entry in the UK.

In his 2014 appearance on a Howard Stern town hall special, Joel explained that the original sheet music printed for this song was wrong, with an extra chord in the intro. He says that he often hears people playing it the wrong way, and has even corrected some of them when he hears it.

Paul McCartney has delivered high praise for this song, stating in his Club Sandwich newsletter that it's one of the few songs he wished he had written ("Stardust" is his first selection).

Joel performed this on Saturday Night Live in 1977, three months before it was released.