How Billy Joel’s 1977 love song made it clear he was heading for divorce: “I should have known”
Billy Joel wouldn’t be Billy Joel without his 1977 love song, ‘Just the Way You Are’, which marked his first-ever top ten hit, leading to his first Grammy Award for ‘Song of the Year’ and ‘Record of the Year’, and it allowed the shy performer to claim the title of critically-acclaimed musician.
The song was painfully personal as he had written it as a birthday gift for his first wife, Elizabeth Weber, whom he married in 1973, but the magic only lasted nine years before divorce loomed on the horizon. This unfortunate end was almost written in the stars: The pair were a product of adultery, as Weber and Joel had an affair while she was still married to Joel’s bandmate, Jon Small.
Beyond being his secret lover and ultimate wife, Weber also became his business manager, lending an instrumental hand in shaping his career. It was, after all, Weber who convinced Joel to release the birthday song as an official single, and without the cruel mistress in hindsight, the story is sweet enough.
Initially, the song is even a soaring, heartfelt exploration of unconditional love and affection, sweeping aside the mundanity of everyday life as a symbol of the undying passion between Joel and his first wife, but listen harder, and the cracks begin to show, which is clearest from the place Joel leaves off, as he admits that there may just be a limit to his limitless love after all. “I don’t want clever conversation, I never want to work that hard,” he sings, before concluding self-assuredly, “I just want someone that I can talk to, I want you just the way you are”.
But sometimes love is hard work, and it feels all the more rewarding for it; Weber famously left Joel after he was hospitalised for a motorcycle accident, refusing to continue to watch Joel risk his life. The pair’s love had grown stale in the barren wasteland of miscommunication, an unhappy consequence of their shared agreement that love should take no effort at all.
Not only that, but Joel’s first-ever time performing the song for Weber ended in a cringe-worthy exchange, when she asked, in the echo of the final string pluck, “Do I get the publishing too?”
The moment should’ve been eye-opening for Joel, who admitted in Fred Schruers’ Billy Joel: The Definitive Biography, “In retrospect, I probably should have known right then and there that the relationship was doomed. I had written ‘Just the Way You Are’ for someone who had changed”.
After their divorce, Joel all but retired the fan favourite for the sour taste it left in his mouth. Still, fans far and wide named it as their favourite of his repertoire, which often gave Joel pause for thought: “I always worry about people using this as their wedding song,” he told USA Today, adding, “I want to say, ‘Hey, look what happened to me! You sure you don’t want to think about this?'”
Hopefully, as time goes by, lovers in need of a summating sappy song will opt for the Bruno Mars track of the same title, and Joel’s love blunder can fade into obscurity.
