Coming off the album Turnstiles, which was accomplished but lacked any hit singles, Billy Joel had reached a crucial point. His next record would likely determine the trajectory of his career from that point forward. That album, released in 1977, was The Stranger, and it turned Joel into a mega-star in the music world. Several songs from the album became hits, and even the non-hits have become legendary. Here are some interesting pieces of knowledge you can drop the next time you hear them.
Joel had self-produced Turnstiles in 1976. Although he was immensely proud of the album, he also realized that he needed someone on his side else who understood what it took to make hit records. For that reason, he initially tried to secure George Martin as the producer of The Stranger. The legendary Beatles' producer reportedly showed interest. But Martin backed off when Joel insisted on using his touring band on the record. Martin had wanted to bring in session musicians. Joel settled on Phil Ramone. The two hit it off so well on The Stranger that they worked together for the next decade.
If nothing else, Ramone provided invaluable support as a sounding board for Joel. In a couple of cases on The Stranger, he talked Joel out of fixing what wasn't broken. When Joel was recording the title track, he was whistling during the instrumental intro to indicate what he wanted a woodwind instrument to play. Ramone suggested that he simply keep the whistle. Then, on "Movin' Out (Anthony's Song)", Joel sang a guide vocal demonstrating what he wanted the reverb to sound like. "Working too hard can give you a heart attack-ack-ack," Joel sang. Ramone insisted that Joel's instinct to sing the part was correct, and that moment now stands as one of the most iconic moments of the song.
While Joel might not have secured George Martin to produce the album, he still managed to pay a loving tribute to the Fab Four. Joel had always been impressed by what The Beatles achieved on Side Two of Abbey Road, combining several smaller songs into a single, stirring suite. While not a side long, "Scenes From An Italian Restaurant" finds Joel doing his own version of that. Joel fused together bits and pieces of music on which he had been working, managing to come up with clever transitional pieces as connectors. While the different segments of the lyrics might not directly go together, they do indeed sound like snapshots of the folks wafting about the titular establishment on any given night.
Billy Joel isn't alone in terms of popular artists who were financially harmed by poor decisions made in signing contracts. In his case, he went through this scenario a couple of times. When he married Elizabeth Weber in 1973, she helped him get out of some existing bad deals and put him on firmer financial footing. Watching her in these dealings inspired The Stranger track "She's Always A Woman", a song where a guy marvels at what the female of the species is capable of doing. Alas, after divorcing Weber in 1982, Billy handed over his finances to her brother Frank, a decision that also backfired on him down the road.
Billy Joel's father was born in Germany. He handed down his talent as a pianist to young Billy. However, when Billy was still just a kid in the 50s, his father divorced his mother and relocated to Austria. Years later, when Joel visited his dad, he was struck by how much respect was offered to elders in the country. That started him down the road to writing "Vienna" for The Stranger, one of his most beloved non-singles. The lyrics make their point by giving advice to an impetuous youth who's trying to gobble up all of life's experiences in a hurry. Even the melody of the piano in the opening of the song recalls a tune drifting about on a Viennese breeze.