The Billy Joel song that made Paul McCartney jealous: “I’d like to have written that one”
Even though he’s now in his 80s, Paul McCartney‘s creative spirit still burns bright and retirement is off the table. While he’s already carved out a repertoire of material that has ensured his name will be inked into the skin of music forever, McCartney’s never allowed money to cloud his vision or quest for penning his next great song.
Artistry is more than a job to McCartney; it’s his everything. Since he met John Lennon as a teenager and formed the most dynamic songwriting partnership in rock history, McCartney’s life has revolved around his mission to master his craft. Despite having countless achievements to his name, many of which will never be beaten in the next 100 years, he refuses to rest on his laurels.
Like many great artists, McCartney also has a competitive streak that runs through his veins. While plentiful negative connotations are attached to this phrase, it doesn’t always have to be that way. Conversely, this trait can manifest positively. For example, if it wasn’t for The Beatles’ minds exploding upon hearing The Beach Boys’ Pet Sounds, they’d never have been compelled to create Sgt Pepper’s Loney Hearts Club Band.
As much as they can try, songwriters can’t help themselves from allowing their hearts to pang with jealousy upon hearing a track they wish belonged to them. Therefore, despite the rich catalogue of tracks in his canon, there are a few more that McCartney wishes he could call his own, including one by Billy Joel.
Little did McCartney know it at the time, but he played a pivotal role in Billy Joel’s decision to pursue a career in music. When The Beatles made their famous debut on US television in 1964 on the Ed O’Sullivan Show, Joel was a teenager who became transfixed by the spectacle on his screen. While they were from a different side of the world, they fluently spoke his language.
“That one performance changed my life,” Joel once recalled. “Up to that moment, I’d never considered playing rock as a career. And when I saw four guys who didn’t look like they’d come out of the Hollywood star mill, who played their own songs and instruments, and especially because you could see this look in John Lennon’s face – and he looked like he was always saying: ‘Fuck you!’ — I said: ‘I know these guys, I can relate to these guys, I am these guys. This is what I’m going to do — play in a rock band’.”
From that moment, Joel never looked back and immersed himself in the New York music scene. Remarkably, for a few years, it looked like Joel’s career would never take off, but his work finally caught the attention of Artie Ripp, who helped him become a star. While his first four albums didn’t particularly trouble the charts, Billy Joel’s trajectory changed in 1977 thanks to his single, ‘Just The Way You Are‘.
The love song was penned as an ode to his first wife, Elizabeth, and struck a chord with McCartney, who named it one of the tracks he wished he had written. The former Beatle said in the Club Sandwich newsletter in 1994: “I don’t really want to have written anyone else’s songs, but, as a fantasy question, I love ‘Stardust’, by Hoagy Carmichael and Mitchell Parish. It’s a beautiful song. And I remember thinking that Billy Joel’s first hit, ‘Just The Way You Are’, was a nice song, I’d like to have written that one too. ‘Stardust’ first, though.” He added: “But when it comes down to it, the truth is that I feel so lucky at what I’ve done… if I ever start listing them: ‘The Long And Winding Road’, ‘The Fool On The Hill’… it’s difficult to take it all in.”
Despite the track being Joel’s first major hit, the musician held mixed feelings towards the song for many years because of his divorce from Elizabeth in 1982. “Every time I wrote a song for a person I was in a relationship with, it didn’t last,” he said. “It was kind of like the curse. Here’s your song – we might as well say goodbye now.”
Although Joel labelled ‘Just The Way You Are’ a curse, his songwriting capabilities proved strong enough to prove he was more than a one-hit wonder. Nevertheless, it remains one of his most beloved efforts, and McCartney’s high praise illustrates why it’s so beloved.
