| "Only the Good Die Young" | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Single by Billy Joel | ||||
| from the album The Stranger | ||||
| B-side | "Get It Right the First Time" | |||
| Released | 1977 | |||
| Format | 7" | |||
| Recorded | 1977 | |||
| Genre | Rock | |||
| Length | 3:55 | |||
| Label | Columbia | |||
| Writer(s) | Billy Joel | |||
| Producer | Phil Ramone | |||
| Billy Joel singles chronology | ||||
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"Only the Good Die Young" is a song from Billy Joel's 1977 pop rock album, The Stranger. The song was controversial for its time, with the lyrics describing a boy who tries to convince a Catholic girl who is a virgin to have sex with him.[1]
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The girl's name, "Virginia," is a play on "virgin." The boy/narrator believes that the girl is refusing him because she comes from a religious Catholic family and that she believes sex before marriage is sinful.[2] He sings, "You Catholic girls start much too late,/ but sooner or later it comes down to fate./ I might as well be the one." Perceived as "anti-Catholic", the song was banned by many radio stations.[2] "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 critics missed – the man in the song failed to get anywhere with the girl, and she kept her chastity.[3]
A demo, included in the box set My Lives, features a slower, reggae version of the song. Joel uses a church organ in the song, aiding the general theme of the song. Joel has stated publicly that he changed the reggae beat to a shuffle beat at the request of his longtime drummer, Liberty DeVitto, who hated reggae music.[4]
| Chart (1977) | Peak position |
|---|---|
| Canadian Singles Chart[5] | 18 |
| U.S. Billboard Hot 100[2] | 24 |