The songwriter did not take long to hit his commercial stride, becoming a definitive voice of rock and pop during the early 1970s, with tracks like ‘Piano Man’.
While talking to the Los Angeles Times last year, the New York songwriter reflected upon his long and illustrious career, sharing that, if given his time again, he would omit “at least 25%” of his discography. Admittedly, when you have as many songs as Billy Joel, 25% forms a smaller part of that discography than you might expect, but it is certainly not an insignificant number. Joel even went as far as to pick out two tracks in particular that are the cause of some regret.
“I’ve written some real stinkers I wish I could take back,” Joel said, selecting 1989’s ‘When In Rome’ and 1980’s ‘C’était Toi’ as significant missteps. The latter track appeared on Joel’s seventh studio album, Glass Houses, which, as an entire record, was not one of the songwriter’s strongest efforts. ‘C’était Toi’ was certainly an odd track, with Joel reflecting, “I don’t even speak French, so I don’t know what I was doing.”
According to the songwriter, these various mistakes came from the intense pressure on himself to pump out hits consistently. “Sometimes I’d get six or seven songs I thought were pretty damn good,” he remembered, “then there’d be a couple of squeeze-outs at the end just to fill up the album.” It was these filler tracks which formed the basis of Joel’s regrets, particularly with regard to tunes like ‘When In Rome’.
Luckily, Joel was able to use these experiences as something of a learning curve. “I realise now I shouldn’t have done that,” he said, and it certainly seems as though the singer became more selective with what material he allowed record companies to release as the years went by. Nevertheless, tracks like ‘When In Rome’ and ‘C’était Toi’ remain stains on an otherwise commendable discography
Don't expect a new album after the surprise release of Billy Joel's first new song in nearly 20 years. "Nope!" he bluntly answered, when asked about a larger studio project by Variety.
"Who makes albums anymore anyway?" he added. "I think the only person making new albums these days is Taylor Swift or Olivia Rodrigo. I don't know other people who make albums. I don't know what the marketing of that is like now." (UCR)
Plus, Joel doesn’t like writing, calling it “a form of torture.”
“There’s this big black beast with 88 teeth that wants to bite my fingers off while I’m writing. I drive myself nuts. It’s just not as good as I want it to be,” he explains. “It’s a great deal of torment, and I decided I don’t want to put myself through that anymore. I used to have drinking problems and all kinds of self-hate when I was writing, because I set the bar so high. It’s not something I miss. I love making music.”
