Billy Joel to release his first pop single in more than 30 years
NEW YORK — Billy Joel is in a new music state of mind.
The piano-playing legend from Long Island is set to release his first new pop single in 30 years next week, he hinted Monday, previewing the song with a brief teaser he published on social media.
In 2007, Joel released “All My Life,” a jazzy number with whiffs of Frank Sinatra.
He has otherwise steered clear of new music — outside of classical releases — for the last three decades, even as he has often performed concerts and established a long-running residency at Madison Square Garden.
Joel stopped releasing pop music in 1993 after he released “River of Dreams,” a rich and eclectic rock album that fittingly finished with a song titled “Famous Last Words.”
Joel, 74, may yet have some words to sing. According to a news release, the new song, titled “Turn the Lights On,” includes the lyric “Did I wait too long… to turn the lights back on?”
In a video Joel posted on social media teasing the song, his hand appears to turn a notebook page that is scrawled with faded lyrics and titled “Famous Last Words.”
Joel, wearing a dark suit, then appears, tickling a tune on a piano in a shadowy room. The post says the song will arrive Feb. 1.
Joel, a six-time Grammy Award winner, is scheduled to end his Madison Square Garden residency in July.
In “Famous Last Words,” he offered hope that more music was to come.
“These are the last words I have to say/that’s why it took so long to write,” he sang. “There will be other words some other day/but that’s the story of my life.”
———
