Billy Joel explains decision to quit writing songs: “Stop, don’t kill it”
Billy Joel has opened up about why he hasn’t written an album since 1993’s River of Dreams.
While in those 33 years since his last record, Joel made a classical album, 2001’s Fantasies & Delusions, and also the occasional song, including 2024’s ‘Turn the Lights Back On‘, he’s had no intention of writing another LP.
In a new career-spanning interview with Rick Beato, Joel delved into his mindset back in the 1990s, which prompted him to put the brakes on his recording career.
He explained, “When I got to the end of writing River of Dreams, I felt like I was done. I was thinking about what I was going to do next, ‘Wait a minute, I’ve got to sit down and write a whole album’s worth of songs’, I didn’t want to do it.”
Furthermore, Joel had other priorities in his life that mattered more to him, adding, “I was married, I had a child, I didn’t want to lock myself in a cave and devote myself like a monk to writing anymore. I’d done it 12 times.”
He also reminded himself, “I thought, ‘You know what, The Beatles had 12 albums’, and that was just enough for me, and I decided I wasn’t going to do it anymore.”
From a legacy standpoint, Joel believes that releasing just 12 albums was a vital step in ensuring that his earlier work wasn’t drowned out by later, less revered material, saying of other artists, “They dilute their legacy, maybe they are not as good as they used to be, or maybe they are not as motivated as they were. It ends up trailing off. I didn’t want to go on like that.”
With more than a hint of self-awareness, Joel said that he “didn’t want to keep beating a dead horse and being played because I was Billy Joel, I wanted it to be good, and recognised I didn’t have the same motivation I used to have, so I said, ‘Stop, don’t kill it.'”
Joel was on spritely form throughout the interview with Beato. Notably, last year, he was forced to cancel all of his future shows after he was diagnosed with Normal Pressure Hydrocephalus (NPH).
Earlier this year, in a positive health update, his daughter, Alexa Ray, shared, “He’s doing physical therapy regularly, and he’s doing great.”
She continued, “He’s lost weight as he’s on his diet. I’m so proud of him. He’s such a trooper, so resilient and committed to being healthy and proactive. He’s a fighter.”
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