Sunday Music – The Stranger

Posted on Sun 01/17/2010 by TonyfromOz

Today’s music video is ‘The Stranger’ from Billy Joel.

This video was posted to You Tube by darylhsu

This song was the title of Billy’s fifth studio album, released in 1977. All five earlier albums had been moderately successful, but this was definitely his breakthrough album. He had widespread success with his song ‘Piano Man’ from his 1973 second album of the same name. Even though five of his subsequent albums went to Number One, this album hovered at Number Two without actually making it. Even so, this is still his largest selling album. Considering the huge impact of Billy Joel, it’s hard to believe he only had three Number One singles over his whole career. He has been nominated for 23 Grammy Awards, and has won 6 Grammys, along the way selling more than 100 million records World Wide and becoming the third best selling solo artist in the U.S.

This album produced four hits, and is considered to be his classic album.

This song was not one of those hits, but still remains one of my favourites, mainly for the haunting whistling at the start and end of the song. Billy first asked his record producer Phil Ramone if he could find an instrument to play that part, but Ramone told him that the whistling part was actually what made the song what it was, and indicated the intent of the stranger in the song.

Billy came from a musical family, and reluctantly learned the piano at a young age, something that got him into some strife with his young male peers in his youth. The woman who taught him piano also taught ballet, and his friends thought Billy was going there to learn dancing, not particularly a ‘boy thing’ at the time.

While still quite young, he also had a job after school playing in a piano bar and the late hours caused him to miss a final English credit exam he needed to graduate from High School, so he left school without graduating and became an entertainer. In 1992, he submitted essays to the school board, and was finally awarded his high school diploma at his high school, Hicksville High in New York State, 25 years after leaving school.

As a bonus today, here’s a link to another of those songs from that same album, this one ‘Scenes From An Italian Restaurant’, a song which is a favourite with live audiences, but was not one of the original hits from the album.