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The wait for a new Billy Joel song is over as he's released "Turn the Lights Back On," which he considers to be his first new song since his last pop album, 1993's River of Dreams.
While Columbia Records released “All My Life” and “Christmas in Fallujah" in 2007, Billy has remained true to his word that he's no longer interested in writing and recording pop songs. That's until he received a call from his family doctor asking if he could meet songwriter Freddy Wexler at a restaurant near Billy's house in Sag Harbor, New York.
Wexler's wife had arranged the meeting for his 35th birthday, and, unbeknownst to Billy, Wexler has written songs for Ariana Grande, Justin Bieber, Kanye West, Pink, Selena Gomez, Celine Dion and many others.
After some more convincing and a trip to Billy's house, he agreed and sent Wexler a CD of unfinished songs, which they've been working on for a year-and-a-half.
However, this new song, "Turn the Lights Back On," is not one of them. It's one that Wexler and two of his friends, Arthur Bacon, and Wayne Hector, had been writing.
Joel also filmed a video for the song, something else he doesn't like doing, and he will perform it for the first time Sunday night on the Grammy Awards.
Source: Rolling Stone and Premiere