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
How billy sees his own work in comparison with that of his musical idol. what is it you said about beethoven and you said i haven t forgiven myself for not being beethoven? well, i read a quote where neal diamond was talking about he had forgiven himself for not being beethoven, and i had an epiphany at that moment. that s the issue, i haven t forgiven myself for not being beethoven. and i probably never will. the first interview i was able to track down of you was 1977. you said when i was young i wanted to be a rock star and now i want to be a great musician. what do you want to be now? now i just want to be a good dad. i have two very young kids now, 6 years old, 4 years old.