“I was determined”: The song Billy Joel wanted to give away
When Billy Joel released River of Dreams in 1993, he was on a hot streak. Starting with The Stranger in 1977, each of his seven albums had either topped the charts upon release or at least hit the top ten. River of Dreams followed suit and went to number one when it came out, but where most artists would continue to push for more success, more sales, and more of the rewards that came with it all, Billy Joel called time on his recording career instead.
When he reached the last chapter of his studio career, it seemed that he had closed his songbook for good. Following the lead of The Beatles before him, he got to 12 albums and called it a day. He’d said and sang enough, and despite his enduring popularity, legendary status, and perpetual touring, he has been incredibly vocal about his reticence to record again.
He’s explained away his lack of desire to write, record and release new music in the second half of his career more often than he even used to write, record and release new music in the first half. At times, he said that “it wasn’t fun anymore” and that he had lost his ambition, while at other times, he explained that “I love having written. I hate writing”.
But that doesn’t mean that the fourth and final single, ‘Lullabye (Goodnight, My Angel)’, from his 1993 album, was his last.
In 1997, Joel became the first person to cover Bob Dylan’s new modern standard, ‘To Make You Feel My Love’ (in fact, Joel’s version came out even before Dylan’s did) and followed that single up with another cover, this time in the shape of the Goffin and King composition ‘Hey Girl’. But it would be another ten years still before he released another song that he had written himself. In 2007, the Joel-penned ‘In My Life’ and ‘Christmas in Fallujah’ were both released as singles, but both failed to chart.
It speaks to the enduring quality and legacy of his work and the impact he has had on his audience that Joel can continue to sell out arenas and stadiums around the world despite not having released a new album of material in over 30 years. Last year, hopes for a new album hit their highest levels when Joel surprisingly released a new composition, ‘Turn the Lights Back On’.
Joel was quick to turn the lights right back out on any speculation that a more long-form project was in the works, though. When asked if a new album might follow the single, he simply said, “Nope!” before asking, “Who makes albums anymore anyway?”
No wonder he doesn’t want to work on a full-length project; Joel didn’t even want to work on the single.
Having finished co-writing the song with Freddy Wexler, Joel thought his part in the project was done and declared, “We should send it to Adele.” Wexler had other ideas, though.
“You want me to sing?” Joel recalled asking Wexler, adding that “I was hellbent and determined not to”.
And as good as an Adele version may have sounded, this song so perfectly suits Billy Joel’s ageing but still so instantly recognisable song. Hopefully, we won’t have to wait another 17 years for him to turn those lights back on again.
