"Only the Good Die Young" is a song from Billy Joel's 1977 pop rock album, The Stranger. It was the third of four singles released from the album. The song was controversial for its time, with the lyrics written from the perspective of a young man determined to deflower a Catholic girl.
Song information
The song was inspired by a high school crush of Joel's, Virginia Callahan. The boy/narrator believes that the girl is refusing him because she comes from a religious Catholic family and that she believes premarital sex is sinful. He sings,
Attempts to censor the song only made it more popular, after religious groups considered it anti-Catholic, and pressured radio stations to remove it from their playlists. "When I wrote 'Only the Good Die Young', the point of the song wasn't so much anti-Catholic as pro-lust," Joel told Performing Songwriter magazine. "The minute they banned it, the album started shooting up the charts." In a 2008 interview, Joel also pointed out one part of the lyrics that virtually all the song's critics missed â€" the boy in the song failed to get anywhere with the girl, and she kept her chastity.
Demo version
A demo, included in the box set My Lives, is a slower, reggae version of the song. Joel reprised the song's motif in this version with a church organ. Joel has stated publicly that he changed the reggae beat to a shuffle beat at the request of his long time drummer, Liberty DeVitto, who hated reggae music.
Track listing
7" single (1978)
- "Only the Good Die Young" â€" (3:55)
- "Get It Right the First Time" â€" (3:32)
Charts
References
External links
- Lyrics of this song at MetroLyrics
