there s an element of alchemy in making music. almost a sorcery or a magic that, i don t necessarily understand, but i know that it moves me. i seen the lights go out on broadway i saw the empire state laid low and life went on beyond the palisades they all bought cadillacs and left there long ago to tell the world about the way the lights went out and keep the memory alive it s all these human emotions. for some reason, we can tap into that, musicians. when we came up with this idea of doing a series of in-depth interviews with really extraordinary people, we started thinking about whom we should try to get, and whom we should ask. and we thought about the usual political figures, obama, the dalai lama. and i kept coming back to the idea, of interviewing the person i really wanted to interview, and that was billy joel. and the reason is that i ve been in love with his music ever since i was a teenager growing up in india. billy joel has been a
broadway i saw the empire state lay low life went on beyond the palisades they all bought cadillacs left there long ago to tell the world about the way the light went out to keep the memory alive it s all these human emotions. for some reason we can tap into that as musicians. when we came up with this idea of doing this series of in-depth interviews with really extraordinary people we started thinking about whom we should try to get and whom we should ask. and we thought about the usual political figures, obama, the dali lama. and i come back to the idea of interviewing the person i really wanted to interview, and that was billy joel. and the reason is i ve been in love with his music ever since i was a teenager growing up in india. billy joel has been a rockstar for five decades. today he keeps up his nearly ten-yearlong residency at madison square garden playing the piano and belting out the lyrics that so many fans adore. he s sold more than 150 million reco
So, it s time for me to shut up. and that s exactly what he did. river of dreams was the last original rock album billy released in 1993. eight years later, he did release fantasies and delusions, an album of classical music. so, you re still writing a lot, right? i still compose music. and is there an element of, maybe you re being too much of a perfectionist that you don t want to show it to us, let the public hear? maybe. i didn t think of that. but what s important to me is that, i m being productive to myself. that i am creating. that i m still a musician. i don t feel the need to have to share it with the world or record it and sell records, and make a business out of it, because i ve been doing that for the past 50 years.
Was going to be great and the world was going to change and there was going to be no more war. and i realized how naive i was to have written that. things didn t change. things got what seemed to be worse. and i recognized i m not a a prophet. i m not a philosopher. i m just a dumb piano player, so it s time for me to shut up. and that s exactly what he did. river of dreams was the last original rock album billy released in 1993. eight years later he did release fantasies and delusions, an album of classical music. so you re still writing a lot, right? i still compose music. and is there an element of maybe you re being too much of a perfectionist that you don t want to show it to us, let the public hear it?