Singer who led a generation on why he stopped making music - 'Excruciating'

Best-selling singer Billy Joel has revealed why he stopped making music for years, but it’s not all doom and gloom.

Many bands and musical artists would love to become a one-hit wonder because it still means they made a hit—you can’t take that away from them. But then there’s an artist like Billy Joel… the 75-year-old has more hits than most would even know what to do with. Standing proud as the fourth-best-selling solo artist in the US, the man’s oeuvre includes such beloved songs as Uptown Girl, Vienna, Piano Man, and We Didn’t Start The Fire. Listeners love him, but one day the man himself decided it was time to put the fire out…

Billy Joel stopped making music once he lost ‘enjoyment’

The thirteenth and final album from Billy arrived in 2001 courtesy of Fantasies & Delusions, a classical compositions collection that stood in stark contrast to the previous album, 1993’s River Of Dreams.

During an interview with the Los Angeles Times last year, the hitmaker was asked why he stopped writing new music for so long. Answering with swift honesty, he explained: “[It] just got to a point where it was getting excruciating for me to write. The enjoyment went out of it.

“I just read an interesting quote by [Ernest] Hemingway,” he elaborated. “Someone asked him, ‘Why is it so easy for me to read your stuff?’ And Hemingway said, ‘Because it was so goddamn hard for me to write.'” That’s clearly something Billy felt he had in common with the legendary author.

It’s refreshing to hear the legacy artist be transparent about his approach to the craft though. “It just felt like it was time for me to stop writing songs,” he put it bluntly.

“I didn’t have the same motivation anymore. You need inspiration to create good new music, and if you don’t have it, don’t bother. Get off the treadmill, for Christ’s sake.”

Billy Joel made unexpected return with new single this year

The She’s Always A Woman singer may have felt no inspiration to create new music in the
years of touring leading up to 2023. However, that makes it all the more exciting that inspiration must have finally returned to him after all.

In February 2024, Billy released the brand-new single Turn The Lights Back On, his first in decades, signaling less a return to form than simply a straight-up return to music, period.

After having heard him dish the dirt on his back catalog, at least fans can say confidently that he must like the track. Otherwise, it wouldn’t have seen the light of day.

“I’ve written some real stinkers I wish I could take back,” he confessed to the LA Times. These include the likes of When In Rome and C’était Toi. “Sometimes I’d get six or seven songs I thought were pretty damn good,” he revealed, “then there’d be a couple of squeeze-outs at the end just to fill up the album. I realize now I shouldn’t have done that.”

If a new Billy album is eventually born into the world, it would be all killer no filler.

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