Highlights
- Billy Joel doesn't love all the songs he's written and recorded.
- Joel didn't think highly of his own singing voice.
- Billy Joel has revealed a lot about what many imagine to be his best songs.
Even although Billy Joel has been placing out music since the Seventies, he doesn't actually love all the songs that he has written and recorded. This is without a doubt surprising to listen to about. For example, Joel doesn't like "We Didn't Start The Fire". While some musicians keep their feelings about their songs on the subject of their chests because they want fans to interpret them as they see are compatible, that's not Billy Joel's style. He opens up quite a lot, and fans like hearing the true tales at the back of his music.
Even despite the fact that Billy Joel was married three times, not all of his songs are about his ex-wives. He has relatively a big catalog of songs that are about different portions of his life, and it's amusing to look back on his musical historical past. Here's what Billy Joel has stated about his biggest songs.
7 Billy Joel Disliked His Singing Voice

It's easy to assume that if any individual has been a solo artist or a member of a band for a very long time, they think extremely of their own musical abilities. That wasn't at all times the case with Billy Joel, however.
In 2014, Howard Stern interviewed Billy Joel for a SiriusXM Town Hall, and he talked about his voice. According to Consequence.net, he mentioned, "I like [my voice] better now than I used to. I don’t think of myself as a singer."
This could be sudden for enthusiasts to hear since Joel has been freeing songs and performing since the Seventies. It additionally seems like smoking would possibly have affected his voice over the years. Joel stated in the similar interview, “It’s horrible to your voice.”
6 Billy Joel Wrote "Piano Man" About A Job He Once Had

Billy Joel's 1973 song "Piano Man" was his first large hit, and fanatics nonetheless adore it to this present day. It tells a perfect story about a musician who plays the piano at a cafe and comes across many various people. There's no query that it's an absolute vintage.
Joel talked about "Piano Man" in a 2017 interview with the Library of Congress and mentioned that this is the task that he once had. He defined, "It’s pretty accurate. It’s what really went on when I was a piano man in this piano bar. All the characters have the same name: there was John at the bar, the bartender; Davy was in the Navy; a guy named Paul, who was a real estate agent and was trying to write the great American novel, and the waitress, who was my girlfriend at the time and then became my wife."
5 Billy Joel's "New York State Of Mind" Was Meant To Be Positive

The Billy Joel tune "New York State Of Mind" became on his album "Turnstiles," which was released in 1976. The lyrics of the chorus are memorable: "It comes down to reality/And it's fine with me 'cause I've let it slide/Don't care if it's Chinatown or up on Riverside/I don't have any reasons/I've left them all behind/I'm in a New York state of mind." Joel also sang the track with Tony Bennett.
In a 2015 interview with Newsday, Joel explained why he wrote the music. He stated, “A lot of dangerous things have been happening in New York then. There changed into a lot of crime. Drugs were out of keep an eye on. The city appeared dangerous; it changed into truly dirty. It almost defaulted, financially. It truly wanted a boost, and I wanted to write down an anthem for it.”
4 Billy Joel Wrote "Uptown Girls" When He Dated Christie Brinkley

Christie Brinkley and Billy Joel have been married from 1985 to 1994, and he wrote at least one tune about her. But even supposing "Uptown Girls" is one of Joel's most notable songs, other folks didn't all the time get the backstory totally right kind.
According to Far Out Magazine, other folks concept that "Uptown Girls" become written as a result of of the singer's relationship with Elle MacPherson. But, if truth be told, he wrote it as a result of he became courting Christie Brinkley. As Joel instructed Howard Stern, “So I’m courting Elle for a couple of months, off and on. She went to Europe, and I figured that turned into it. Then I began so far Christie, after Elle and I had stopped dating. Rather than the song being about these types of other women, she was the uptown woman. I started writing it about one person. They were given the tale wrong. It is about Christie.”
3 Billy Joel's "Big Shot" Was Actually About Mick Jagger And Bianca Jagger

Billy Joel talked to Howard Stern in 2021 and explained what he changed into considering about when he wrote "Big Shot." This is most probably one thing that his enthusiasts have been questioning about for a long time. The singer wrote the tune about Mick and Bianca Jagger, who were married from 1971 to 1978.
Joel told the radio show host, “I just pictured him yelling at Bianca Jagger after they went out and had too much to drink." He added that he came up with fictional lyrics: "It turned into my own delusion. It wasn’t in accordance with the rest actual.”
2 What Did Billy Joel Think About "Only The Good Die Young"?

"Only The Good Die Young" became launched in 1977 on Billy Joel's "The Stranger" album. When in comparison to the singer's other in style songs, it is unquestionably a little racier. He sang about somebody who sought after to sleep with a spiritual woman.
Recently, Joel mentioned that he learned that the music has some issues. He instructed The Los Angeles Times, "It’s kind of a selfish song — like, who cares what happens to you? What about what I want? But on the other hand, it was of its time. This was written in the mid-’70s, and I was trying to seduce girls. Why bulls— about it?”
According to American Songwriter, Joel once said that he liked a girl named Virginia Callahan when he was younger, and she is the person he wrote the song about.
1 Billy Joel's "You're My Home" Was Inspired By Gordon Lightfoot

In 1973, Billy Joel put out his tune "You're My Home." It's a beautiful tune, and he was actually thinking about another musician he wrote it. The lyrics are very romantic, especially "Well, I by no means had a place that I may name my very own/But that is all right, my love, 'purpose you're my home" and "Well, I'll by no means be a stranger and I'll by no means be alone/Wherever we're together, that's my home."
While of course many bands and singers have released countless songs about love, there is something else that fans should know about this song. As Joel said to Howard Stern in 2021, he wanted the song to sound like a song that Gordon Lightfoot would have released. He said, “I love Gordon Lightfoot. He’s one of my favorite singers."
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