Billy Joel Hints at New Song Collaboration with Pink
Could Sag Harbor’s Piano Man be returning to the recording studio? According to a recent Los Angeles Times profile, the answer is yes!
The story, “On the road with Billy Joel: The Piano Man talks Trump, L.A. — and new music?” by Mikael Wood, offers some excellent insights from Joel about his career, how he came to be a recording artist, his recollections about the bar from his song “Piano Man,” and more, but at the very end he drops a potential bombshell bit of news:
“As Joel sipped Crown Royal from a plastic cup in the moments before he went onstage, he mentioned that he and Pink had recently gotten together and thrown around some ideas. He wasn’t sure what would come of it but said he’d had a good time.”
Yes, you heard it right! While this wouldn’t exactly be big news for most tremendous talents like Joel, it just so happens the singer-songwriter hasn’t put out an album of original material since 1993’s River of Dreams, and since then he’s only put out two original singles with any singing or lyrics. Both released in 2007, the songs are “All My Life” and “Christmas In Fallujah,” which he wrote for Cass Dillon and released for charity in 2007. Joel only sings on a live version of “Christmas In Fallujah” made during a November 2008 concert in Australia, but it is available on iTunes.
So why hasn’t Joel released anything for so long when he clearly enjoys playing live and still packs Madison Square Garden for every performance? The Los Angeles Times article gets into that, too:
“Joel says he quit writing songs because his standards were so high that the process became a source of agony. ‘I’d turn into a caveman — walk around kicking things,’ he said. But he also lost interest in what was going on in pop.”
We can’t wait to see what he did with Pink, who’s pretty fantastic in her own right. Here’s hoping it comes to fruition.