July 31, 2025

At the beginning of 2024, Billy Joel mused - in his first release of over 17 years! - “Did I wait too long to turn the lights back on?”

There was a decent amount of fanfare in welcoming this artist back to the recording world; I believe he debuted the song live at the Grammy’s and the reviews were more or less flattering.  But then the whole novelty, at least to me, seemed to disappear.

I remember hearing the song once or twice and being happy that he certainly hadn’t embarrassed himself in any way but at the same time concluding this was also something he could have easily produced back in the day.  I never even saw the video.

But now, fortunately, HBO has presented a two-part documentary that forces me to completely recalculate my initial response.  This five-hour presentation, so splendid and remarkable and captivating, serves as a vivid reminder of the incredible journey taken by one man.  He was flawed as any of us can be, perhaps even more so, yet blessed with a talent that could only be truly realized with patience, hard work and determination.  Billy Joel had never been unilaterally a favorite of critics and many would-be music experts out there, for a host of reasons I could go on and on about.  Perhaps in response to this, he had been intentionally silent since “The River of Dreams” CD came out in 1993.

When one doesn’t make a move to answer back criticism for over 30 years, preconceived ideas have a way of remaining intact and misrepresentations can be viewed as the truth.

But then sometimes we get the chance to be reminded of greatness before it’s gone.  I could spend pages and pages of this blog on examples of where this artist greatly exceeded expectations and became superior to even his own expectations of what he himself could be.  Instead, though, I’d like to simply focus on this one song.

Even I needed this documentary, it turns out, to give “Turn the Lights Back On” a proper listen.  And the song is great. My earlier summation that this could have been easily produced back in the day is not necessarily wrong, it occurs to me now - but damn - I kind of missed the fact that he’d set the bar so astoundingly high!  My original comment was, looking back, the highest of praise.  Who else but Billy Joel could come up with something exactly like this!

If a great artist wants to take 30 years before composing lyrics to original music, so be it - Billy Joel certainly doesn’t owe anything to anybody.  But at the same time, welcome back!  Maybe the lack of a huge response to that single last year had him second-guessing the idea of fleshing this creativity out to an entire new album, but I’ll bet many people are like me - we need a slight push to give new music from a semi-retired artist a real listen.  I believe we’re all ready and eager for more.

The song is haunting, slightly melancholy and entirely memorable.  He hasn’t waited too long.  And I hope we are all fortunate enough to someday hear more from this still-vibrant artist.  I was lucky, no doubt about it, to see him perform live several times over the years, the last time during his years-long residency at Madison Square Garden.  For a moment or two afterwards I thought maybe I’d seen enough of him - there were too many sax solos at that last show.  But now, well - like I say, I’m one of the lucky ones.  I’ll hopefully be seeing Paul McCartney again with my two brothers this coming November.  And if Billy Joel’s health improves enough for another tour, I’d love to check it out.

Especially if he gifts us another album of new music!  This one I promise to give more of a proper listen right from the start!

Well, here I am, on July 31st, almost having waited too long late to submit a monthly blog in time.  But here it is!!

And by the way - I enjoyed the official music video as well!