Billy Joel HATES Writing Songs?
Wait? Is it true? Billy Joel HATES writing songs? For a guy that sung and wrote Honesty, that’s pretty honest. Before we see Billy Joel and Stevie Nicks at Gillette, let’s take a ride into the songwriting mind of the Piano Man.
Billy Joel Hates This Billy Joel Song
Before we get to WHY Billy hates writing, don’t be surprised on Saturday night at Gillette. Billy may stop in the middle of the concert and says, I need your help with this one. With 59 names, and 117 events, Billy HATES performing We Didn’t Start The Fire, LIVE. In fact TMZ has a clip of Billy botching the lyrics during a show in Toronto. Sometimes he regrets writing it. “It can turn into a dumpster fire, if you mess it up.”
According to Far Out Magazine, “Fire” was inspired by a studio visit from a young Sean Ono Lennon, the son of John. Billy was in the same studio as Sean and heard him reflect how it was a terrible time to be a young person. Billy felt it was just as hard when HE was younger. That was the beginning of the musical, historical journey that became, We Didn’t Start The Fire.
Billy Joel HATES Writing?
Well this partly is true. Billy says the starting, is the hardest part. I know it’s hard to believe, but even Billy Joel struggles with song writing. Earlier this month, he told Far Out Magazine:
“It doesn’t always come to you like a bolt out of the blue, like you don’t always get that Promethean moment like I did with ‘New York State of Mind’. I love having written, I hate writing.”
Barry Gibb of the Bee Gees, who has written many massive, number one hits says, artists don’t write songs, they receive them. In a recent visit with Howard Stern Billy said: “Sometimes I look at the piano, and it is this big, black beast with 88 teeth that wants to bite my fingers off.”
Well, this Saturday night at Gillette, we will all come together to feel the struggle of the great piano man, armed and ready to help him remember the lyrics, of the songs, we will never forget.