Billy Joel fans have reasons to celebrate. The singer has released his first new single in 17 years “Turn the Lights Back On,” and fans can’t get enough.
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Taking to social media, fans celebrate the single as a return to form for Joel and a classic in the making. One person wrote on X, “Billy Joel knocked this song out of the universe!!! It has brought such emotion to his fans. The world missed his musical talent. Love this song and him. Thank you Billy.”
However, some fans can already imagine the song later being covered by other singers. Another person wrote, “A solid addition to Billy Joel’s catalog. But my instant thought is that the Taylor Swift cover of this song is going to be incredible.
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Yet another person wrote, “As a Billy Joel fan and defender, I’m excited that the man who admitted to losing the spark has written a poignant ballad that delivers classic Joel moments. There’s plenty about the song for the haters to pick at, but overall I love it.”
Billy Joel Teased New Music
Joel previously teased that he was working on something new. During one of his performances, he revealed that he had something in the works.
“I have good news. I have bad news. I’ll give you the bad news first: We don’t have anything new to play for you,” Joel said. “The good news is, you don’t have to sit through something you have no idea what it is. Although, we’ve got a little something we’re working on that you might hear sometime.”
It’s Joel’s first song in nearly two decades. In a 2018 interview with Vulture, Joel explained why he stepped away from songwriting. He said, “When I stopped writing songs it was time.”
Joel blamed not being able to reach the heights of his prime as why he stopped writing. The singer also struggled with drinking during this time as well.
“I couldn’t be as good as I wanted and that was driving me crazy. I was driving my loved ones crazy,” he told the outlet. “I thought, ‘This is ridiculous.’ So I stopped.”
However, Joel revealed to Howard Stern in 2021 that he never stopped loving music or wanting to write songs.
“You have to have the desire to write songs. I love music so I never stopped writing music. It’s instrumental music. But I stopped writing lyrics because I got tired of that particular format,” Joel explained. “To me, music is enough now, and I became more comfortable with abstract form. But if I had an idea for a song, I’m not going to stop myself. I just haven’t had the desire to do it.”
[Photo by Ethan Miller/Getty Images]
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