"The Stranger" is a song by rock artist Billy Joel

Billy Joel

William Martin "Billy" Joel is an American musician and pianist, singer-songwriter, and classical composer. Since releasing his first hit song, "Piano Man", in 1973, Joel has become the sixth best-selling recording artist and the third best-selling solo artist in the United States, according to...

 from his 1977 album of the same name, The Stranger

The Stranger (album)

The Stranger is the fifth studio album by musician Billy Joel, released in 1977 . While his four previous albums had been moderate chart successes, this was his breakthrough album, and is generally regarded by critics as his magnum opus, spending six weeks at #2 in the U.S. album charts...

. The song was released as a single in Japan

Japan

Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...

 where it became very popular and peaked at #2 on the Oricon

Oricon

, established in 1999, is the holding company at the head of a Japanese corporate group that supplies statistics and information on music and the music industry in Japan. It started as , which was founded by Sōkō Koike in November 1967 and became known for its music charts. Oricon Inc...

 chart. It was the last single from the album in Japan, while the US and UK saw "She's Always a Woman", released the previous year, as the last single from the album.

The single is featured on Joel's greatest hits album, Greatest Hits - Volume I & II

Greatest Hits (Billy Joel albums)

Billy Joel's Greatest Hits is a collection released in two sets, 12 years apart. The first set, consisting of two discs, titled Volume I and Volume II, was released in 1985. The second, single disc titled Volume III was released in 1997. All songs but the last three on Volume III, "To Make You Feel...

.

A two-minute instrumental reprise of this song is featured at the end of the The Stranger album, after "Everybody Has a Dream".

Billy Joel originally wanted the melody to be played by some kind of wind instrument, suggesting a clarinet

Clarinet

The clarinet is a musical instrument of woodwind type. The name derives from adding the suffix -et to the Italian word clarino , as the first clarinets had a strident tone similar to that of a trumpet. The instrument has an approximately cylindrical bore, and uses a single reed...

. But after Joel demonstrated the melody by whistling it, producer Phil Ramone

Phil Ramone

Phil Ramone is a South-African violinist, composer, recording engineer, and record producer.-Biography:As a young child in South Africa, Ramone was a musical prodigy, beginning to play the violin at age three and performing for Queen Elizabeth II at age ten...

 convinced Joel to scrap the idea of a clarinet and whistle instead. The aforementioned whistling at the opening and closing was, consciously or unconsciously, inspired by the Alessandro Alessandroni's (Italian composer of film scores) tune of the same name.

Chart positions

Chart (1978)	Peak position
Australian Singles Chart	59
Japan Oricon Singles Chart Oricon , established in 1999, is the holding company at the head of a Japanese corporate group that supplies statistics and information on music and the music industry in Japan. It started as , which was founded by Sōkō Koike in November 1967 and became known for its music charts. Oricon Inc...	2