Wiki says Joel wrote the tune himself, but for some reason I’ve always thought I’d heard it somewhere else before. Anyone else think so? If so, where’s it from?
I dunno, but always loved the whistling part. I taught myself that part when one job I had played it every hour. I’d whistle along, no matter what I was doing - the sort of stuff one does to occupy their mind when working minimum-wage jobs.
I remember him saying in an interview once that his mother, who had always wanted hi to be a classical pianist, was always disappointed he never wrote “real” music. He did that intro as a way of saying, “See, Mom? I can do that too.”
I haven’t heard the opening from The Stranger anywhere else, no. This Night Can Last Forever is to the tune of Beethoven’s Pathetique Sonata, though.
DECADES ago, I remember Billy doing a radio interview on WPLJ, and he was asked about the opening to “The Stranger.” I remember him saying he was trying to create the atmosphere of an old black-and-white movie. He sort of envisioned Humphrey Bogart whistling as he walked down a lonely street in Paris, late at night.
That was the second album I ever owned. I am sure that is the only place I ever heard it.
That is exactly the image that came to my mind the first time I heard it.