"Just the Way You Are"

"Just the Way You Are"

Billy Joel

Song released September 29, 1977
Rock

Cassette

B+

For the first time, it strikes me that the placement of this song after the title track was deliberate, throwing complex shades on what seems to be a celebration of simplicity and honesty.  (And we know that honesty is such a lonely word.)  In "The Stranger," he comes home to a woman he doesn't recognize without her mask, while here he discourages surface changes (new fashion, color of her hair).  He wants her just the way she is, but does that mean no change ever?  He doesn't want clever conversation, but rather someone he can talk to.  There is a fear of his loved one no longer being "the same old someone," like Archie Bunker fearing Edith's baby steps towards independence.  It is a very '70s song, with all the tensions and contradictions that holds.  And I didn't get that at 19, and definitely not when I was nine and the song was a hit.  As for Joel, he stopped playing the song for years after he divorced his first wife.