BILLY JOEL hates hearing piano bar crooners perform his hit ballad JUST THE WAY YOU ARE - because the sheet music is all wrong.
The PIANO MAN failed to notice the chord mistake when the music was first printed in the late 1970s and now cringes whenever a clever bar performer spots him at a table.
Joel says, "The first couple of chords are wrong; I didn't catch it... so I walk into a piano bar and the guy will start playing it and he'll play it the wrong way. I want to go over and correct him. That drives me nuts." Joel, who wrote the tune as a birthday gift to his first wife ELIZABETH WEBER, has also removed the track from his live set because he admits it bores him - and he feels hypocritical singing about a love that lasts forever.
He adds, "It was written during a time when I was married to someone. I said, `I said I loved you and that's forever...' and, after 10 years, it was over.
"It kinda felt foolish. I said, 'Well, so much for forever.' I felt a little hypocritical.
"I also started getting bored (performing it) and I would start thinking about what I was gonna eat because I'm starving onstage."