Piano Man is back, and to celebrate his first new single in nearly two decades, “Turn the Lights Back On,” Billy Joel and co-writer Freddy Wexler discussed the writing process with Audacity Check In this week.
Joel talked about losing his zest for music for a while. “It was fun. Music is fun. Rock and roll was fun,” he said. “It was all about having fun – and I kind of lost it and turned the lights off because it wasn't fun anymore.”
He added that his unexpected connection with Wexler was what convinced him to return to the studio again. “Other people tried to get me to come back and do new material and do the recordings, and I always resisted. I was studiously avoiding it because songwriting had become painful,” he recalls. “I have this high bar. I said to myself, “If I don't get to this bar, I'm going to beat myself up and punch myself and hate myself.” So I stopped doing it because I got tired of feeling that way.”
When Joel heard what Wexler was working on, it resonated with him. “The melody, the chords, the chord progression, even the time signature was something that immediately struck me and that's how I relate to music,” he explained. “That particular verse in that song, I had those thoughts, I could have written those lyrics verbatim. I've chewed on these words and I've thought about these words, and I've said these words over and over again. It was all sort of in place — and who am I to fight that?'
Joel will perform “Turn the Lights Back On” live for the first time at Sunday's (Feb. 4) 2024 Grammy Awards, airing on CBS at 8 p.m. ET.
from our partners at https://www.billboard.com/music/music-news/billy-joel-talks-turn-the-lights-back-on-1235595729/
