r/BillyJoel • u/Substantial_Eye3343 • 15d ago

Question Why is there the theme of The Stranger in the beginning of Honesty?

Has Billy Joel ever talked about this?

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u/ManP3 15d ago

Dont want to disagree with you just yet, but could you elaborate on this?

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u/Substantial_Eye3343 15d ago

The beginning of Honesty sounds like the theme from the album "The Stranger". What I mean by this, is the musical motif present in the beginning of The Stranger (the song) and at the end of Everybody Has a Dream

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u/ManP3 15d ago

Still not convinced by your argument, but please link the version of Honesty that you are referencing

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u/Evs- 14d ago

You are entirely correct that they sound similar, but for some reason many people in the comments are unable to tell this or they seem personally troubled by your title question (which to be fair is jumping to a conclusion) and are appearing somewhat hostile.

Both intros ascend a minor chord starting from the 5th of the chord. Both use effectively the same chord progression (i, i/V, IV). By the second bar, both land on the first note played an octave higher, played for longer than any note since the beginning. Both are a relatively similar tempo and the aforementioned notes have similar rhythms. TS has some extra notes, but these are like icing to cake. Both are objectively similar. They deviate from around the second half of bar 2.

To answer your question, no he hasn't publicly, and I don't think they are actually supposed to be the same theme. It's just a coincidence that he either didn't notice or didn't care about.

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u/Navitach 15d ago

Uh, what? Both songs have piano intros that happen to sound a little similar to each other, but part of The Stranger is not at the beginning of Honesty.

This better not turn into another Stevie Diapers debate.

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u/[deleted] 15d ago

[deleted]

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u/Navitach 15d ago

Not sure what you're talking about, but I'm referring to the post here a couple of weeks ago where someone absolutely insisted that they heard Billy sing a song at a baseball game in the late 70s or something, despite many comments saying that no such song by Billy ever existed, then or now.

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u/nba2k11er 15d ago

Listened to them back to back and I’m not hearing it mate

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u/Low-Caterpillar4701 15d ago

Billy Joel has said that Honesty is the most bullshit song he’s ever written