The Worst Song I Ever Wrote

THE PERPETRATOR Billy Joel THE PROOF ''C'Etait Toi (You Were the One),'' from 1980's Glass Houses THE PLEA ''It's a song written in French -- and I don't even speak French,'' says Joel. ''I love the sound of the language, though, so I wrote a song and got this guy to translate my lyrics. I tried to make them fit the song, but it [came out] absurd. I had had a huge hit with 'Honesty' in France, and I went to France and performed. Do you remember the movie The Producers, how after they do 'Springtime for Hitler,' the audience just sits there? Well, that's what the French did after I performed that song. The worst thing you can do to the French is to massacre their language. After the show I asked the promoter 'What happened?' And he said, 'Well, they thought that you were singing in Polish.' That's when I said, this song really sucks.''