JUST THE WAY YOU ARE

Billy Joel - Bruno Mars = Just the way you are

Singers from different era , popular with the same song title.
At first I thought it was the same song , just then I know that it was completely different. One of my students said, "Beda generasi Bu!".

If you are my age, you are familiar with   Billy Joel (William Martin Joel, born in the Bronx, New York, in 1949)  version of Just the way you are. When the song was first released in 1977, I was still  8 years old. I don't remember I heard the song back then. But as a teenager I  was quite familiar with the song, and it's still popular today. It means that it is one of the everlasting songs we have. The song was written for Joel's wife, Elizabeth. I read once in a book that when Joel was still a kid he asked his mother why he couldn't be like other kids and his mother told him to be confident and be himself. When he grew up it inspired him to write the song.

And if you have teenage children you should be familiar with Bruno Mars' version of Just the way you are. Born as Peter Gene Hernandez in Honolulu, Hawaii on October 8 , 1985 from Filipino and Puerto Rican descent, he chose Bruno Mars as his stage name. He is one of  successful young musicians , winning Grammy Award for Best Male Pop Vocal Performance, and co-wrote the hit "Wavin' Flag" By K'naan which was very popular during World Cup. His single" Just the way you are"  released in July 2010 made him popular worldwide.

Just the way you are, an advice to be ourselves. Of course we have to be confident and be ourselves, but is it fair to ask too much from our family and  friends to take us just the way we are with our "minus" quality?

Anyway it's just a song, right?