Billy Joel has produced timeless classics, but after his 1993 album River of Dreams, he never wrote another album again.
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Speaking with Rick Beato in a YouTube interview, Joel explained that he wanted to go out on top.
"When I got to the end of writing River of Dreams, I felt like I was done," he said. "I was married [to Christie Brinkley], I had a child. I didn't want to lock myself in a cave and devote myself like a monk to writing anymore. I had done it 12 times and I thought, 'You know what? The Beatles had 12 albums.' And that was just enough for me."
He felt that turning out album after album would dilute his own legacy.
"Maybe they're not as good as they used to be or they're not as motivated as they were, but it ends up trailing off. I didn't want to go like that," he said. "It's not easy to do. Saying no sometimes is really hard to do."
Billy Joel Talks Songwriting
That's what made "Turn the Lights Back On" so special when it dropped in 2024. Joel also produced a classical album Fantasies & Delusions in 2001 as well.
"I did a whole album of classical piano pieces after that. That's where I wanted to go. I was ready to do that. [It was] something I had to get out of my system. I didn't want to just keep beating a dead horse and being played because I was Billy Joel," he said. "I wanted it to be good, and I recognized that I didn't have the same motivation that I used to have, so I said, 'Stop. Don't kill it.'"
Although Joel gave advice to other artists, he stopped short of actually helping them with songwriting. According to Joel, he's all tapped out.
"I go, 'Well you're gonna have to fix it because I can't do it anymore. You better learn how to stop songwriting because it's gonna drive you crazy. You'll go insane,'" he said. "You get to a point you can't do it anymore. You've tapped it out, you reached such a high level that you can't stand not reaching that level anymore, and you hate yourself. You beat yourself up, and I didn't want to put myself through that anymore."
