Sunday Sitdown with Willie Geist - Billy Joel Reflects on His Record-Breaking Residency and His Biggest Hits (August 2024)

Episode Date: December 1, 2024

 Willie sits down with Billy Joel in his Sag Harbor home as he wraps up his decade-long residency at New York's Madison Square Garden. He talks about a half-century of writing and playing some of the most famous songs in the history of music. (Original broadcast date August 18, 2024.) Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Hey guys, Willie Geist here with another episode of the Sunday Sit Down podcast. My thanks, as always, for clicking and listening along. My goodness, am I excited to bring you my conversation with one of the most, I don't know, famous people ever to record music, one of the most prolific people ever to record music, one of the best-selling artists ever to record music. He is the icon, Billy Joel. I'm so excited to bring you this conversation because Billy doesn't do a ton of interviews, and really doesn't have new music out, doesn't have a new album out.

He just wanted to sit down and talk about his life and his career. I can't begin to go through it all with you. You know it anyway. 1972, Captain Jack, 1973 album Piano Man is really where it all started to change for him. That was a song. He had left New York. Things weren't really working for him musically here. He moved to L.A.

He was working on Wilshire Boulevard in just a piano bar. and wrote and sang a song about what he saw in there. And it became Piano Man and the rest is history. He has sold 160 million albums, putting him in a class with Elvis, Michael Jackson, Garth Brooks, among the best-selling individual artists in the history of music. So he's got a bunch of Grammys. He's got Kennedy Center honors. He's got a Tony.

The accolades go on and on. But you know him. You know the man. You know the music. A little bit of background. Paint the picture for you. We got together. Way out at the east end of Long Island, a little town called Sag Harbor, a beautiful old whaling

community that's kind of gotten a little bit fancier over the years, a nice, beautiful town. And we got together in a place where he keeps his boats. He's a big boat guy. He's had so many over the years. He's got one named Alexa that he goes out deep sea fishing in, catch a sword fish and tuna and things like that. And we got together a little kind of a boat house where he's got a lot of memorabilia and he's got sort of model ship. and beautiful paintings of ships at sea and old ship to shore radio. It's this amazing collection of kind of nautical gear. So we're sitting in that room called the chart room, if you can imagine that.

And right across the street out the door of that room is his dock where he keeps all of his boats in Sag Harbor. So I will shut up, get out of the way. I hope you can make some time to sit back and enjoy a great conversation with Billy Joel on the Sunday Sit Down podcast. Billy, it's great to see you. Thanks for having us here. Sure. So let's start by explain a little bit about where we are. We were just talking a little bit. This used to be a fish clam joint. And at some point along the way, you took it over. It was originally a seafood shop. And they would pass it through a window out into the sidewalk area. And it was for sale. So the place next door was for sale. This was for sale. I said, I'm going to buy this because they're right on the harbor. And we had the docks. So it's a pretty setup. Got my boats out of here.

You're a big boat guy. I don't know if everybody fully appreciates. I mean, and not just recently. You've been into them for a long time. Where did that start for you? Was it even growing up on Long Island and going up and seeing the boats in the different towns? Yeah. I think when I was a little kid, I grew up in Hicksville.

Yeah. Which is dead center of Long Island. So you weren't on the shore. but on a weekend, your parents would take you to a beach. Either Jones Beach or somewhere on the North Shore. And I was fascinated with the fact that I actually lived on an island. A lot of people live on Long Island. They don't know they're on an island.

Yeah. So I was immediately attracted to the waterfronts. And I always wanted to live in this area. And you got into boats and boat building, too. Yeah, I love boats. We didn't have any money, so we didn't even know about owning a boat. There was a family down the street for me. They actually had a boat on a trailer in their driveway.

They were the rich family. Wow, they must have a lot of money. They got a boat. And I used to swim out to boats and unclip the mooring clips and row them. I borrow boats. But I always gave them back. Good. Good.

But I became fascinated with how boats work and hydranautics and all that stuff. And I ended up being a boat designer. I designed a boat called the Shelter Island Runabout. I know it well, yes. The 38, right? Was that yours? Shelter Island 38. Yeah.

Yeah. Beautiful boat. Yeah. I built one for me and then everybody else started to want that boat. So I sold mine. I don't even own one now. But there's almost 100. of them out there. So it's funny. Right across the bay in Cockles Harbor,

Shelter Island. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I don't know. If, you know, if Keith Richards designed the boat, I don't know if I'd want to buy that. You know, so it's, they call it the rock star boat, but it's a beautiful boat. Your boat people will buy. Keith Richards, maybe not so much, right? We can talk about boats a little bit more when we go outside, but I want to talk about the Madison Square Garden Residency, which has been going on for over a decade, a 104th show coming up here, about two weeks from now,

and the final one of the residency. How do you feel sitting here right now about playing that last show of the residency that has meant so much to you in a building that is the Mecca, especially for people who grew up in the New York area? How are you feeling about the end of that run? Well, I'm kind of sad that it's ending. Ten years in Madison Square Garden is beyond my dreams as a musician.

We were the house band for ten years at the Garden, which I think is the best performance venue in the world. I've been all over the world. I've played all kinds of stadiums, arenas, Coliseums, theaters, the garden is the best sound. And it's in New York,

which is usually a crazy audience, and they make a lot of noise, and we have fun. We have a lot of fun at the garden. It doesn't mean I'll never play there again. It just means it's the end of this run. It's actually the 150th Lifetime show there, which seems like a good round number to stop.

Yeah, so January of 2014, you start this run. In your dreams, was it ever going to last a full decade and go on and on the way it has? No, I had no idea. We'd last this long. I thought there would be an arc. We'd kind of peak and then we kind of drop off. But that hasn't happened. They were buying more tickets recently than they were at the beginning.

So we could have kept going. But after 10 years, it's like, you know, okay, all right already. Well, that's what I was going to ask you. I mean, it's selling better than it ever has. They've all been sold out. Yes. Stubhubbub says it's the hot. ticket of the summer of any musician, the hardest one to get, all of that.

So any second thoughts about ending something that's going so well? Yeah, a lot of them. A lot of second thoughts. It's kind of sad because we could have kept going, but I didn't want to outstay my welcome. This is one of those businesses where, if you don't know when to leave, they're going to kick you out. The show I got to go a couple of months ago. It was on your birthday, as a matter of fact, in May. and to watch that place, which is so special to begin with,

people who've probably seen 10 or 20 or 50 or your shows over their lives, so excited with every song. What does that feel like as a performer to have had those people with you for this long and to still see that thrill they get? It's amazing. There's nothing like it. The funny thing about it is, okay, I grew up in Long Island. I'm a New Yorker. So to be the main act at the biggest venue in New York is intense enough to begin with.

But 10 years of that, incredible. You can't lose unless you try to lose. You have to try to screw it up. The audience is so good that every night is going to be a great show. They're just so enthusiastic. Now, you go from playing in front of 20,000 people where you're like Mussolini, and then you jump into a car and you scram out of there, and then you're just another schmuck in traffic.

You know, it's a weird transition. It's like you go from to like nothing. And I think some people would have problems with that transition, you know. I've always wondered that, how you go home after a show and just sit in a chair and have a snack and watch Netflix or something. Yeah, I come home, you know, take out the garbage, let the dogs out. And that's it, you know, it's funny transition. Some people have trouble with it.

It's amazing, though, to look up, you go to a Knicks game. You look up in the rafters, and there's Walt Frazier and the Rangers and Messier and there's Billy Joel, and they have to keep putting up a new banner for every time you break another record. Yeah, that's right. In consecutive streaks. Again, for a kid from Hicksville who loved the Knicks and the Rangers and all that, is that a wild thing for you to know that you're now part of the history of the garden?

Yes, that's an amazing thing. It's not anything I ever imagined would really happen. So, I mean, my first time at the garden, I was a little kid. I went to see the circus. It was a Christmas show. The star of the show was Gene Autry. This is like 1952. 52, 53. I was maybe four years old. Five years old. Maybe, maybe three. And we sat up in the

nosebleeds and there's Gene Autry, the headliner of the circus, and he starts singing his big hit, which was Rudolph the Red Nose Rainier. I'm almost in the top row. And he says, I want everybody to sing along. I didn't sing. I didn't think I had to. And then he stops the song and he says, I said I want everybody to sing. I thought he was shooting at me. I was scared at that. I started, you know,

Rudolph, and that was my first show at the garden. It was the old garden, too. It wasn't even where the garden is situated now. You know, I've heard other artists say what you said about the sound in the garden, that it really is the best.

Can you put your finger on why that is? Is it the low ceiling? What is that? There's something about the acoustics. It's better now than it used to be because when we first started playing the garden, it was good, but it wasn't as good as it is now. They did some kind of acoustic work. I don't know if they changed material or they raised the ceiling or what, but it's the best sound.

Because a lot of places that are considered to be, you know, top venues, coliseums and theaters don't always have great sound. This place, it just sounds great. We've got it tuned in. My sound guy, who's been with me for 50 years, he's got it locked in. You know, that struck me going to the show and getting to meet some of the guys in your group that night, that those are the guys who have been with you from the beginning. Yeah. That family, that loyalty, most of them, or close to the beginning.

Does that mean a lot to you to carry all of them with you on this incredible ride you've been on? Oh, yeah. It's like family. I mean, we go other places and we go there at. family. And yeah, it's like your real family, your in-laws, the same group of people. And they're all really good at what they do. And we do our best to keep it all together. Hey guys, thanks for listening to the Sunday Sit Down podcast. Stick around to hear more from Billy Joel right after the break. Welcome back now more of my conversation with Billy Joel. There's been some talk because of the

relationship between the garden and another venue in Las Vegas, that that might be a good place for your next run at the sphere in Las Vegas. Is that something that interests you at all? I'm intrigued by the concept of it, but you've got to bring your own content, which is a big deal. That's a big production. You look at the U-2 footage and this, oh my God, how long did it take to make this, how much did it cost to make this content? And I don't know if it was, you be too distracting from what we actually do. I like the concept of it, but I don't know. Does it become, you know, like this, what's the place in the Natural History Museum? Oh, yeah, like the planetarian. Planetarium. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

But maybe. It is a lot for the senses. When you want to listen to a guy playing the piano, there's a lot going on, you know? Yeah. I don't think I would want to do a residency in Vegas though. It's not my town. You're a New York guy. Yeah, you're a New York guy. The other thing I was thinking watching you play that night when you come out and you do these songs that you've been playing for 50 years, some of them, is even though you've sang them so many times, you see something in the crowd or maybe a couple people in the crowd. And it seems to me you're right back to one of the first times you played it. Like there's no going through the motions, right? I mean, is that, do you credit that to the audience, the energy

they, the life they give you? Yes, the energy from the audience is very impactful during the performance, especially at the garden. Everybody's singing along. And sometimes, you know, if I'm not sure, wait a minute, what are the words here? I'll watch people in the crowd. They know the lyrics. So I'm following them. They think they're following me. And I see somebody who knows their words. Oh, okay, good. Thank you. So it's fun. It's kind of like being in an Irish pub. Everybody's sending along.

Yes. A few people are a few sheets to the wind. And it's just an enthusiastic experience. It really is being out there in that crowd. I mean, it's people with arms around each other. Yeah. It takes them to some moment in high school or something with their parents and their childhood or a good time or a bad time.

You know, it's kind of a cliche. This music is the soundtrack to our lives. But yours really has been for a half a century. Is that meaningful to you to know that the song you wrote in a room somewhere all those years back means so much individually to someone? Well, it's meaningful to me when someone will come up and say, your music was the soundtrack in my life. that's really gratifying to know.

It was that important to people. I don't really sit around and think about that. Like, hey, my music is timeless. I don't think like that. But I'm reminded of it when someone brings it up. It's very gratifying to know that. Is Piano Man the song when you look out of the crowd? Is that when they get the most amped

or at least the most unified in their singing? Well, we actually have choreographed the song to allow the audience to be featured during that song. We stopped playing and they keep singing. So that's kind of a natural piano man. I mean, and people ask me, hey, are you looking forward to doing piano, I said,

no. You know, we've done it for a thousand years. But when the audience takes it over, I like that. Yeah. Then I get a little break. A little breather in a long show. Yeah, a little rest. I love the idea.

that you're looking at them for the lyrics, too. Just pick it up, pick it up off them a little bit. Especially when we didn't start the fire. Because you mess up one lyric and that it's a train wreck. So you've got to get bang, bang, bang, bang, you've got to know all the lyrics. And I look down and there's always somebody who knows all the words and I'm following them. I was funny. I was thinking that listening at in the car earlier.

I said, man, I know this song for 30 years, but you're right. If you lose Marilyn Monroe or Crucef or whatever in there, you're done. Yeah. You know, there's a line that says, trouble in the Suez about the Sewers Canal Crisis. But everybody thought it was, not everybody, but a lot of people thought it was trouble in the sewers. And that pops into my head right before I sing that long.

Don't say sewers, say Suez. You got to think about this stuff. This is all going to your head on your show. It's kind of impressive that you can nail it on every show like that. It's a lot of lyrics that have been around for a while. Yeah. A lot of alliteration. A lot of alliteration.

Is it true, Billy, that piano man, the success of Piano Man anyway surprised you a little bit that you thought, this is a good song, but that you didn't know it was going to become such an iconic touch tone in the culture? At the time, I was totally shocked that they wanted to put it out as a single.

The record company made the decision that that'll be the single. It's in 6-8 time, which is a waltz. It's a long song And the topic is a bit depressing It's about these people sitting in a bar Commiserating with each other Over their all their own miseries

And I was shocked That it got as far as it did It really wasn't what they call a sell-through hit It didn't go gold or anything When it came out But it got a lot of airplay It's what they call a turntable hit Because the disc jockey's played it

Because they liked it where people requested it on their phone lines. So it became known. I think a lot of people thought it was Harry Chapin originally. Yeah. It's okay, you know, as long as you've got some airplay. And that is, for people who don't know the backstory,

that's from that era when you were in L.A., right? Yeah. Right on Wilshire, under a different name that you have now. That's right. It was Bill Martin at the keyboards. It was Wilshire and Western. It's not there anymore.

I think there's an insurance building. or a parking lot. But it was called the executive room. And it was not typical of a Los Angeles nightclub or anything. It was just a bar. It was like a neighborhood bar. But I paid the rent for a while. Yeah, I should say.

I do have to ask you as long as I'm sitting here with you, what exactly is a real estate novelist? Well, it's a guy who's a real estate broker who's trying to write the Great American novel about what his line of work is. Yeah. So, Paul is, well, he's in real estate, and he's writing a novel. So I made him a real estate novelist. Right.

Which is kind of like a Gilbert and Sullivan line, you know. Right, right. Didn't have time for the wife because he's working on the Great American novel and never quite getting there, right? Right. Well, there's this new theory out there now that it's actually about a gay bar. Oh. I was reading this day.

Oh, I see how that could be. Paul's talking to Davey, who's in the Navy. Right. You know, in the Navy. So, yeah, there's a whole theory about it. He doesn't have time for a wife. Oh. So.

I never considered that. I see it now. There's a whole theory of it. It's very funny, actually. Not what you were thinking, but it is plausible. Yeah. There's another thing going on, and I think you know about this, with the song Vienna.

which is that this young generation, Gen Z, has taken it on as kind of an anthem about it's going to be okay, slow down a little bit, you're going to get where you want to go because there's this sort of, you know, instant gratification culture. Are you aware of this? Yes. Younger people have discovered that song on their own one way or the other. It was never released as a single, and it's become really popular as an album cut. Yeah. So, which I really like a lot when that happens because I tend to like the album cuts better than the actual hit records. And I know why people like that song.

I wrote it from my friends. I was watching people like kill themselves trying to make success out of their life at an early age. It's like, take easy. You're going to get there. Right. But it takes some time and wisdom to be able to write that song. Well, I wrote it in my 20s. You're ahead of your time, as usual.

Well, I was really about people I know who were, you know, having a hard time getting through life. Everybody has that. Everybody has to deal with that. It is kind of amazing to go to social media, though, and you've got like 25-year-old saying, this is our song. This is our anthem. This is the story of we need to remember what Billy Joel is telling us. I appreciate that a lot.

It's very cool. I was thinking about enlisting a lot the other day to Allentown. I swear I'm not going through every song. I'll be here for hours. And thinking about a song that you wrote, I guess, and put out in 1982 and how what you're saying there about unfulfilled promises to people who went and fought in World War II and did well in school. And we're told that this was the path to the dream. and then we're left kind of holding the bag

and had nothing to show for it. What an amazing commentary that is about that time. And then sort of what it says about our times now, like those were around when some of the seeds were planted for everything we're seeing now. Yeah. Do you feel that way at all that that song, with a lot of the songs you wrote,

say something about that moment in history, and you can kind of read it out from there? Well, I thought it was important when I was writing to talk about the world as it was, you know, at the time of the writing of something. And I think that would give some music resonance. You know, you always try to look back at art and see what the world was like. Artists usually represent what the world was at that moment. And it's a great record to have of how the world was.

And I always wanted to write about what's topical, what's going on now? What's all around me? I call it Look Out the Windows songs. Rather than there was, I wrote one science fiction song, which was called Miami 2017, which is since come and gone, 2017. But that was my science fiction song, projecting into the future. But almost all the other stuff was about its time, you know, what the time was, what was going on. What's going on?

Marvin Gaye said it best. It's so, Allentown is so profound, though. I mean, it just, and it kind of breaks your heart, right? These men and these women who believed in something. Well, they're actually having a renaissance in Allentown now. Yes. The town's back big time. The steel industry's gone, which was in Bethlehem, really.

But the people who worked, they lived in Allentown. Yeah. And we used to play, that was our bread and butter area for a long time. I owe them a great deal because we play there all the time and we were popular there. It was the what's the name of that area?

Lehigh Valley. Lehigh Valley and there in Scranton and all this hardscrabble places. But they're back now. Now, Valentine's, there's another example of people. There's a gay theory about it. The video, there's a lot of

homoeroticism. I watched the video recently and I said, oh my God. It was the director who wanted, he's got these young guys all muscular taking showers in the factory. And I said, what was the point of that? I didn't talk about showers in the song,

but he had an opportunity to see young buff guys nude. So that was by his design maybe? You weren't aware of it? Oh yeah. Yeah, yeah. We had a big budget and he spent it on boys. taking showers. So I'm watching the video, I'm thinking, wait a minute,

what's going on here? So I can see how people can see that. I love that you're just discovering all this now. Yes. Oh my God. I didn't see it. This was what built my career. Stick around for more of my conversation with Billy Joel

right after a quick break. Welcome back now to the rest of my conversation with Billy Joel. So with the end of this residency, Billy, it raises the question about what comes next. I mean, you hadn't done a new song for a long time, and then you did one this year,

and it's a beautiful song about legacy and maybe regrets and things like that. Did that light any spark in you at all that you want to put more music out and write and record new songs? Well, hearing, I didn't write the song. I sang this song, and I changed some of the music. But that was it.

The lyrics were there, and I related totally. to that song. As soon as I heard it, I went, that's a really good song. That's something I would have written. That's something that I would probably have tried to write. So I sang it. I wasn't even expecting to sing it. The guy, Freddie Wexler, who got me to listen to it and go into the studio, said, why don't you go sing? And I said, I don't want to sing. I think this is for, like, someone like Adele. He said, no, no, no, you try it. You try this. Oh, okay. And And they kind of, you know, talk me into doing it. And then it was put out as a record.

So, you know, I'd like the song, but did it inspire me to want to write more stuff? Not particularly, no. No, writing to me is torment. I don't want to do that anymore. I'd like to write music. I don't like to write songs so much because it's really, really hard to write a good song. Really hard. I still have those look out the window moments, though, and go, oh, that'd be a good song.

Yeah, I mean, I have those thoughts. This would make for a good song, but I don't do it because I beat myself up so much when I'm writing. I don't want to go through it again. Right. A lot of people keep it. Why don't you write? Why don't you write? Just go write a song.

You know, you could do it. You did it before. You could do it. And I said, you know what it took me to write that thing? I beat myself up. I went through hell. I don't want to do that anymore. And I got 50 years of songs.

listen to those, right? Yeah, there's a lot of album tracks you guys don't know. Go listen to the album tracks. They're like new songs. So no new albums coming out on the horizon, it's fair to say. No, not that I know of. So creatively then, is there more performing concerts, stuff like that? We're going to continue to do shows. We have a whole schedule laid out into 2025. We're going to be playing. But I'm also going to be playing in New York again. because we can do other venues. There was an exclusivity aspect to the Madison Square Garden deal, and now we can play stadiums, Yankee Stadium, Giant Stadium, City Field,

the Mets play. So there's plenty of that lined up. I'm not going to stop doing shows. That's what I do. I asked a couple of contemporaries, Henley, Springsteen, what are you going to do now? And they said the same thing. Well, we want to keep performing. Yeah.

Why? Because that's what I do. I said, oh, right. Okay, a good idea. You know, what else am I going to do? Stop doing shows and sit around and watch TV and do a vegetable? No, I don't do that. Especially when you're still filling up the places, right?

I mean, the biggest venues you can fill, people are coming to see it. Yeah, and we're getting all different age demographics. I'm seeing a lot of younger people in our show. It's like they're coming to see the antique, you know? Let's see what this is all good I can do. But it helps, you know, having new audiences come in all the time. Yeah, I mentioned you before we started. A great moment in your show.

At the Garden is when you do a little stones and you do your Mick Jagger impersonation and talk a little bit about the solidarity with guys like Mick and Bruce guys still out there doing it. Do you feel a sense of that? Because I think when I was growing up or my parents were growing up, You didn't see people still doing it at such a high level. And so many of you, you are.

Well, we're really lucky. People are still paying big dollars for tickets to see us. And I've been doing this for over 50 years. And they want to come see me? Well, I'm not going to stop doing it. It's really a compliment that all these people want to see you at this point. We're just more tickets being sold now than when I had big hit record. coming out right so there's a value to it and you're right it is the generations it's

being passed down and yeah my son is 15 and I was had you on in the car two days ago he knew every word to every song really how do you know these songs everybody knows these songs really years old yeah he's very into music but I mean that's amazing yeah there's been some kind of transition with different generations and music that's lasted. I mean, when I was a kid, I didn't really know much about the Sinatra and

Tony Bennett and all that stuff. We didn't know much about our parents' music. We had our own rock and roll coming in. But now it seems like it transposes into different generations. You know, kids know 50-year-old rock and roll. Yes. Yeah. You had such fascinating taste as a kid, too.

I mean, as a kid who played the piano from a young age, yes, of course, you like the Beatles and Hendricks and those guys, but you also love Beethoven and Chopin. Where did that mix come from for you as a kid? I was exposed to it as a kid. My father was a trained classical pianist. My mother was a musician who sang, and she knew all these show tunes.

We were exposed to Broadway shows. We were exposed to classical music. I listened to pop music on the radio. we went to concerts. I mean, I liked it all. I liked all music. So why not listen to it, you know? And you see it in your music, which is, I mean, you're playing classical piano, right?

But there's also rock and roll and there's all those, I hear all those influences of your childhood up on that stage. Well, it's, I mean, that's what I grew up on. That's what I was influenced by. So why not utilize that, you know? I never shut myself off from any kind of. kind of music. I was not a musical snob. A lot of people can become musical snobs because they only listen to one kind of music and this is all I like and therefore everything else is no good, which I think is silly. Why not listen to it? So what was the moment then, Billy, where you realized

you had the talent on the piano, you had a good voice, you could sing a little bit, where you thought this could be a career, not just a hobby. So as a kid, right, you enjoy it, you're in some bands as a teenager. when you decide this is what I'm doing with my life? Well, I actually decided when one of my teachers told me that I should consider becoming a professional musician. It was my chorus teacher in high school. The name was Chuck Arnold. And I was cutting class one day.

I think I was in 10th grade. And I would go to the music room and I'd play their big grand piano because they had a big, you know. concert grand. It was, wow, this is great. Why go to algebra? I'm going to play this piano. And a guy came in and said,

excuse me, what are you doing here? And it was, uh-oh, busted. You know, obviously I'm cutting my class. I was trying to play Chakowski's first piano concerto. Oh, da, bum, bum, bam, bam, da, da, da, da, da, bum. Bang, jang, bong. And he goes, you don't really know that piece, do you? I said, no, I don't.

I'm just doing it by ear. And he goes, ah, you're not supposed to be here, are you? No. I said, please don't report me. I don't want to get in trouble for cutting class. He goes, I'll tell you what, if you join my music history class, I won't say anything. So I said, deal. Yeah.

And he was the guy who convinced me that I should consider being a professional. professional musician. Wow. And I mean, I had a grown-up, tell me that. I was, what, 16, have an adult say, that's what you should do. Because everybody else said, you don't want to be a musician. You're going to struggle. You're never going to make any money. It's going to be a tough life. This guy, you know, convinced me. Isn't it amazing that one moment like that changes the course of your life? I think a good teacher can make a huge difference. Yes. No question about it. Yeah. Also, you saw like so many people in February 64, you saw, The Beatles on the Ed Sullivan show. What did you see in the TV that night that made you think, I got to do this? I saw something that was totally different than anything I'd seen or heard. It was these four guys from Liverpool. I'm from the town called Hicksville. But what's a worst name than that?

Liverpool. And I'm imagining a pool of liver. You know, and they had funny haircuts. They grew their hair long. They wrote their own songs. They played their own instruments. They weren't in Hollywood movies. They were like working class guys, like, and I knew.

Especially John London. You could see it in his facial expressions. Like, ah, this is so crazy. But I could relate to them. And I said, that's what I want to do. That's what I want to do. And wild to think that you became a contemporary of theirs that you mentioned in the same breath in terms of your talent in

terms of your music in terms of your record sales all those things I mean how could you have imagined anything like that single watch I couldn't have I mean it's still amazes me I mean I'm friends with Paul McCartney I mean I know all these different great musicians and yeah they're my contemporaries which is Crazy. Do you think at all, Billy, do you think at all in this moment at the end of the residency about legacy at all? Or is that not something that you sit and consider about, look what I've done over these 50 years of music?

Or do you just keep moving forward? Well, you know, I've never stopped writing music. I still write thematic music, melodic music, orchestral, symphonic music. But I just don't write words anymore. The hardest part of writing for me was always writing the lyrics Because I wrote the music first Which is the backwards way of writing Usually you write a poem and then somebody sets it to music

Well, I write music and then I set it to lyric And it's hard. You've got to jam these words in and make them all fit Make them all rhyme. There's a tyranny to it And it's hard. It's difficult But I always found it easy to write music. Music moves me. The melody moves me. Chords,

progressions move me. You know, arrangements moved me. And I'm going to continue to do that. I don't know if anybody's ever going to hear it, but that's what I've been doing lately. And do you consider the impact your music has had over these 50 years on people? Or do you not dwell on that part of it?

I don't really think about it. It's a little overwhelming to tell you the truth. And some, you know, people will point out, oh, my God, back in this year, that was a big song for me. And like, you were listening to me? I don't know what I'm talking about. I'm as lost as you are, which I've always tried to, you know, tell people. But, no, I don't dwell on it. Have you given any thought to what it's going to feel like on that final bow on the last show at the garden later this month?

It's going to be hard? Yeah. going to be a melancholy moment, actually. We've had such a great time playing at the garden for 10 years. It's going to be hard to say goodbye. It's been the greatest run of any shows we've ever done. I know I'll regret it after we've left, but it doesn't mean we can't go back again. Right. You regret it when you're out there sitting in traffic on your way to let the dogs out. Yes. I'll be thinking. as we lead the garden.

Hey, wait a minute, where is everybody? I was just Mussolini a few minutes ago. You had a captive audience on the balcony, and now you're just a guy in a car. Yeah, just another schmuck in New York traffic. We talked about your surprise at how successful Piano Man was, or the legs of it. Are there any songs you've put out that you were surprised

didn't become bigger hits, sort of the reverse of that? Or are there any sort of, like, You were talking about some of the lesser-known songs. Personal favorites, I guess, is a better way to put it, that maybe aren't as, that aren't the anthems you sing at the shows? Well, I assume that I really don't know a hit record that I've written. When I did Uptown Girl, I said, you know, I bet you this is crazy enough to actually be a hit record. We were trying to do Frankie Valley in the four seasons.

Right. And, you know, it became a hit on its own. And it's like, I have that happen. So it's always, I never expect to have a hit. I don't even pick the songs that are going to be singles. The record company listens to the album, and they all have their meetings and their A&R meetings, and they talk about what should be the single.

And they make the decision. They're the ones who release the record. People think I do it. I just hand them the album. I say, yeah, this is your turkey. Now you figure it out. You walk away and do the concert later. Yeah, here's your album.

This is my obligation. Okay, you figure it out. That is crazy that you did a doo-wop album and it just exploded and full of hits, right? I mean, it's unbelievable. Who knew? Who figured that? I mean, I'm really not thinking about radio. I'm not thinking about an audience.

I'm not thinking about sales, chart numbers. I'm just thinking about what do we want to do? What's fun for us to do? What do we enjoy doing? And somehow or another, it became, you know, very commercially successful. It's a formula that's worked for you. Yeah. It's about having fun.

I think people know when you're having fun or not. I've been to see shows where the performer was not happy being there. And it kind of threw a blanket on the show. Yeah. It's like when somebody's having a good time on stage, it's fun to watch. Right. And if you don't want to be here, what am I doing here, right? Up on the stage.

Yeah. And some people are afraid of making mistakes on stage. Nah, nah, nah, make a mistake. You know, it's a show to talk about. Oh, I was there when they screwed up. Right. That's what's fun about rock and roll. You never know what's going to happen.

Well, you have articulated so well over so many years what so many people are feeling. And it's been a gift to so many people. So I hope you, at some point, when you're kicking back in the chart room, you can think about what you've done for people. Thanks so much, Billy. Great to talk to you. Thank you. My big thanks again to Billy for a great conversation for hosting us there in Sag Harbor.

We actually got up, went across the way, and talked about boats, just the two of us for a long time. He is such a good guy, so generous with his time. My thanks to all of you for listening again this week. If you want to hear more of these conversations with my guests every week, be sure to click follow so you never miss an episode. And don't forget to tune in to Sunday today every weekend on NBC. You can actually see these interviews live and in color. I'm Willie Geist.

We'll see you right back here next week on the Sunday Sit Down Podcast.