Just the Way You Are

"Just the Way You Are" was the second single from The Stranger, released in early November 1977. It became Joel's first US Top 10 single at number 3 and his first UK Top 20 single at number 19, and it topped the Billboard Easy Listening chart for all of January 1978. At the 1979 Grammys it won both Record of the Year and Song of the Year. Joel wrote it for his first wife, Elizabeth Weber, and said the melody and chord progression came to him in a dream. He took the idea for the title and the sound of the chorus from the last line of the Four Seasons' "Rag Doll".

Joel said he first considered keeping the song off the album, dismissing it as a gloopy ballad that did not fit with the rest. The alto saxophone solo is by Phil Woods. The choir effect, similar to 10cc's "I'm Not in Love", came from tape loops of keyboards and backing vocals made by Joel and Ramone. The single cut more than a minute from the album track by dropping the second verse.

Joel played a shorter version on Saturday Night Live on 18 February 1978, the day the single peaked at number 3. Paul McCartney said in the documentary Billy Joel: And So It Goes that it was the song he is most jealous of. When Joel lets an audience choose between this and "Vienna" in concert, "Vienna" usually wins.