The poisoned center at the heart of Billy Joel's "Just the Way You Are"

I was thinking about Billy Joel recently and remembering some of his old songs, when I truly heard these lines from "Just the Way You Are" for the first time:

What will it take till you believe in me
The way that I believe in you?

In those words are the seeds of the one-sided neediness that will ultimately doom a relationship: demanding, whiny, and morally superior. Those words aren't the start of a blissful evening, they're the start of a screaming argument, which probably ends with the slamming of a door (and nothing worse, if everyone's lucky).

It speaks to Joel's skill as a songwriter that he managed to sow the seeds of the breakup within just two lines of an ostensible love song.

....or possibly it speaks to Joel's demanding, whiny and morally superior neediness.....

maybe music is the worst thing we can do

xpost: Well, I never said that Joel *intended* to sow those particular seeds...

i think that was intentional. billy joel is a sad sack alcoholic, i don't think he ever really believed in the utopian vision of love top charting pop ballads are built on. also he can be manipulative in his songs, just think of "only the good die young"

with joel i always picture this cynical guy who hates his audience behind it all. he's one of those guys who has a lot of stereotypical ideas about how the world works, and how the chips are stacked against him cf. uptown girl. he doesn't just take his experiences at face value, on their own terms, but is always falling back on this received bullshit. you can see this sensisbility not just in his lyrics but in his interviews, like the piece with klosterman, where he kept ranting about how he never got the respect he "deserved" from the critical establishment because "it's not cool to know how to play your instrument" or something, as if that's why roxy music fans didn't go for "the stranger."

so yeah, he is always sort of masochistically casting himself as the underdog, and has anticipated in advance that things will work out badly, in my view. maybe he doesn't know that he, through that comment, is poisoning the relationship, but i think he knows it's poisoned. there is a lot of pathos in joel's music

both S&S and pat finn otm. maybe it's generally seen as a simple declaration of romantic devotion, but there's something rueful about the tone throughout. it seems to speak from a fairly dark (or at least a transitional) moment in the described relationship: "i took the good times, i'll take the bad times", "although i may not seem to care", etc. i think that's consistent with joel's writing. he wants to speak with the voice of hard-won experience, flaunting the scars as badges of authenticity.

Re "I took the good times, I'll take the bad times": that always struck me as just being an echo of traditional marriage vows: for better or for worse, for richer or for poorer, in sickness and in health, in good times and bad, etc. etc. etc.

I got the feeling that the "bad times" referred to there were not necessarily emotional bad times caused by the couple, but rather more generic bad times that could come from outside.

Actually, it might make more sense to think of it as a character song... perhaps sung by Eddie to Brenda. And we all know how that turned out.

Lots of double meanings in this song: "I couldn't love you any better." It's like, oh thanks but wait a minute.

Not much else to allow except that this is some motherfucking blasphemy:

http://i.imgur.com/NcLZMmt.png

are there contrarian hipsters who rep for bruno mars the way some people do for taylor swift? i can't imagine it.

that's my wave

Re "I took the good times, I'll take the bad times": that always struck me as just being an echo of traditional marriage vows: for better or for worse, for richer or for poorer, in sickness and in health, in good times and bad, etc. etc. etc.

yeah but see, the good times are past tense, the bad times are here and now (into the probable future). it's not just the traditional vows, he's saying that he knows things are presently fucked, but he's gonna hang in anyway.

are there contrarian hipsters who rep for bruno mars the way some people do for taylor swift? i can't imagine it.

― the gentrification of chill (Pat Finn), S

haha what

interesting thread. I never paid much attention before, but now reading the lyrics it strikes me that this song is very much about a relationship under real strain and not just romantic renewed vows pap. The speaker is probably a needy rescuer type and the girlfriend or wife or whatever probably creates tension with her low self esteem drama.

This is an interesting line too:

Don't imagine you're too familiar
And I don't see you anymore

Can be read a few ways -- obviously it could just mean "Don't get the idea that I'm tired of you and then start avoiding me" but the fact that he chose to put "I don't see you anymore" in present tense opens it up to other meanings.

as in many of Joel's songs I think the central message is "I am wise and compassionate and insightful. You gotta love me, really"

lol, yeah