Only the Good Die Young

"Only the Good Die Young" was controversial for its time, with the lyrics written from the perspective of a young man determined to have sex with a Catholic girl.^[4] The song was inspired by a high school love interest of Joel's, Virginia Callahan. The boy/narrator believes that the girl is refusing him because she comes from a religious Catholic family and that she believes premarital sex is sinful.^[5] 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.

Attempts to censor the song only made it more popular, after religious groups considered it anti-Catholic,^[6] and pressured radio stations to remove it from their playlists.^[5] "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 song's critics missed – the boy in the song failed to get anywhere with the girl, and she kept her chastity.^[7]

In 2023, Joel said of the song "It's occurred to me recently that I'm trying to talk some poor innocent woman into losing her virginity because of my lust. It's kind of a selfish song – like, who cares what happens to you? What about what I want? ... But on the other hand, it was of its time. This was written in the mid-'70s, and I was trying to seduce girls. Why bullshit about it?"^[8]

Billboard described "Only the Good Die Young" as one of Joel's "strongest and catchiest" songs.^[9] Cash Box said that "Billy grabs the fun with a rollicking, handclapping beat, raspy sax solo and racy piano licks."^[10]

A demo, included in the box set My Lives, is a slower, reggae version of the song. Joel reprised the song's motif in this version with a church organ. Joel has stated publicly that he changed the reggae beat to a shuffle beat at the request of his long time drummer, Liberty DeVitto, who hated reggae music.^[6][11]