Billy Joel Would Have Never Released This Hit Song If It Weren't For '70s Icon Linda Ronstadt

Rock, country, pop, and folk music legend Linda Ronstadt is a certified '70s icon. Her 1974 cover of "You're No Good" reached the No. 1 spot on the Billboard Hot 100 chart, while Ronstadt's version of "I Can't Help It (If I'm Still in Love with You)" took home the 1976 Grammy Award for Best Female Country Vocal Performance, and her seventh studio album "Hasten Down the Wind" nabbed the same award for Best Female Pop Vocal Performance the following year. Not only that, but Ronstadt's accolades only got more impressive as the decades passed. 

She scored additional Grammys across the '80s, '90s, 2000s, and 2020s; alongside a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Latin Grammys in 2011; and even a Primetime Emmy in 1989 — to say nothing of her guest appearance in an iconic episode of "The Simpsons," in 1992. However, as it turns out, Ronstadt's already overflowing list of accomplishments arguably also includes the success of one of fellow iconic singer Billy Joel's greatest hits. One of his earliest major successes was Joel's 1977 single "Just the Way You Are," from his fifth studio album, "The Stranger." 

But, during a July 2026 interview with Rick Beato, the legendary singer confessed that the track's sentimentality didn't really work for him at first. "I didn't even want to put it on the album, 'cause I thought it was too mushy," Joel revealed (via YouTube). He elaborated, "Linda Ronstadt and Phoebe Snow were in the studio, and we played the song for them. I said, 'I don't like this song that much.' Linda Ronstadt goes, 'Are you outta your mind?! That's a hit record! You gotta put that on the album, that's a great song!' [...] She talked me into it. So, I have to thank Linda Ronstadt for that song."

Obviously, Linda Ronstadt was 100% correct to push Billy Joel to include "Just the Way You Are" on the final cut of "The Stranger." When the record dropped in 1977, the track was more or less an instant hit. It reached the No. 3 spot on the Billboard Hot 100 chart, the first of Joel's songs to crack the Top 10. And as if that didn't prove Ronstadt right enough, the hit track also went on to win both Song of the Year and Record of the Year at the 1979 Grammy Awards. Legendary Beatles bassist Paul McCartney, who has made a fortune on the back of his songwriting skills, famously admitted that he wished he had been the one to write "Just the Way You Are," which is certainly saying something, considering McCartney is the man who penned "Yesterday." Joel was evidently taken aback by the former Beatle's remarks. 

"That blew me away," the tragedy-enduring "Piano Man" hitmaker told Rick Beato during their 2026 interview (via YouTube). Joel also cited the initial lack of a female perspective as part of the reason he and his bandmates weren't too big on the song's "mushy" tone at first. "We were sitting around, you know, we got a bunch of guys here. There was no girl in the band, it was just all guys," the living legend acknowledged in a previous interview, which was uploaded to YouTube in 2017. "We were listening to it back going, 'I don't know, do you like it?' 'I don't know, it's a chick song.' You know, none of us were all that hot to put it on the album," Joel continued. Fortunately for him (and for us), Ronstadt saved the day.