1. The Stranger – Billy Joel

When I was in middle school my friend’s mother gave me a record player. It was cool, but I hadn’t any records. My mother came to my rescue giving me a few awesome records which included The Best of the Doobies Volume 1 (The Doobie Brothers), Every Picture Tells a Story (Rod Stewart), and The Stranger. I listened to all of the records, but mainly just The Stranger.

The truth is, I took more of an interest in The Stranger because a girl I liked at school told me she loved Billy Joel. I picked a song on the record (Vienna) and listened to it over and over so I could know the song by heart. I could bring it up in conversation, “Oh that song Vienna…um, I think the song goes exactly like this…” As if that conversation would ever come up… Not to mention I picked practically the one song on that album that isn’t a single.

An unexpected thing happened when I listened to The Stranger over and over. I stopped hearing the music and started listening to it. I wrote the lyrics down and read them. When you are younger you just tend to hear whatever your parents may play in the car or what comes along with your cartoons. Yet when we grow up, we understand that songs are expressing a feeling. We can truly get to the point of the song and understand why we like it. In the case of The Stranger and “Vienna”: the song tells us that if we want something we have to do something about it and just go get it, before it is too late. I wanted to get the girl at the time and did something about it (expressed an interest in things she liked). I mirrored the song and in turn got laid. Ok ok, I was like 13. I got a kiss.