Billy Joel
Billy Joel
William Martin "Billy" Joelis an American pianist, singer-songwriter and composer. Since releasing his first hit song, "Piano Man", in 1973, Joel has become the sixth best-selling recording artist and the third best-selling solo artist in the United States. His compilation album Greatest Hits Vol. 1 & 2 is one of the best-selling albums in the US...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionRock Singer
Date of Birth9 May 1949
CityNew York City, NY
CountryUnited States of America
I never stopped writing music, I just stopped writing songs. I've been writing music continually ever since the last album of original tunes, "River Of Dreams" in '93.
I always thought of myself as the piano player in the band. That, I suppose, I'm confident about, and I guess my songwriting developed as I went along and I got a certain amount of confidence in that. The songs are like my kids, I'm proud of all of them for one reason or another.
I tell the audience every night, "I hope you didn't pay more than face value on that ticket, because we ain't worth more than that, and you ain't gonna get any more than that."
The biggest regret? This may be one of those years I have no regrets.
When I first started I didn't know a lot about the job, so I kinda had to figure it out by wire, ya know? It was hit and miss, I made mistakes, and fortunately I was able to recover from most of 'em. But I promised myself if I ever get to a point where I can help somebody that's trying to learn how to do this, that I would try to do that.
I always wrote the music first, and the music gave me the mood and the lyrics were pretty much put in to give you a map, where that mood came from and where it's going. But my first love was really the music itself, and I guess I've gone back to that.
I was thinking of the Four Seasons, Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons, and when I was thinking "Uptown Girl!" I was trying to sing like Frankie Valli. They had a song called "Ragdoll," which was about a poor girl and a rich guy. So I just flipped it around and made it about a rich girl and a poor guy.
I actually wrote the song first as "well, it's 9 o'clock on a Saturday." That bit. Then I said, You know what? It needs some kind of an introduction to kind of set the mood and set the flavor. So I just played this kind of cocktail lounge thing, the hustle and bustle of waitresses going by - that kind of thing.
I'm writing new music all the time. I'm just not writing pop stuff. It's not my goal.
Even when I stop performing or stop making records I won't stop being creative. Songwriting is a good outlet.
You can linger too long in your dreams...
You look so polished from your hair down to your toes, but still your finger's gonna pick your nose.
We passed the hash pipe and played our Doors tapes.
People in music lie, but they don't expect you to believe them. People in television actually expect you to believe the lies.