“The song came out on The Stranger and was no big deal,” Joel remembered. “But then Columbia decided to put it out as a single, and that’s when there were problems. There was a radio station at Seton Hall College in New Jersey. They banned it.”
WSOU at Seton Hall is affiliated with the Catholic Archdiocese in Newark. The president of the college at the time took exception to lines such as:
“The stained glass curtain you’re hiding behind
Never lets in the sun”
And especially:
“They say there’s a heaven for those who will wait
Some say it’s better but I say it ain’t
I’d rather laugh with the sinners than cry with the saints
The sinners are much more fun”
“Then it was banned by the archdiocese of St. Louis,” Joel continued. “And then it got banned in Boston. All these archdiocese areas started putting pressure on radio stations to ban it. The single had been out a short amount of time and wasn’t doing well. The minute they banned it, it starting shooting up the charts, because nothing sells a record like a ban or a boycott.
“This record would have died out. Nobody would’ve heard it if they hadn’t tried to cut people off from it. As soon as the kids found out there was some authority that didn’t want them to hear it, they bought it in droves and it became this big hit.”