Billy Joel gets honest about whether he regrets quitting songwriting

Billy Joel is a well-known songwriter. On his credit was a number of hit rock albums, River of Dreams, is one of them.

Yet, following the 1993 album, he almost stopped writing, except for the 2001 classical album Fantasies & Delusions and a single, Turn the Lights Back On, in 2024.

But Joel said he has no regrets about his decision during an appearance on Rick Beato's YouTube channel.

“When I got to the end of writing River of Dreams, I felt like I was done,” he said.

Joel continued, “I was married [to Christie Brinkley], I had a child. I didn’t want to lock myself in a cave and devote myself like a monk to writing anymore."

According to the songwriter, he penned 12 albums, which he compared to the number of albums by the hit group The Beatles.

"I had done it 12 times and I thought, ‘You know what? The Beatles had 12 albums.’ And that was just enough for me.”

After the comparison, Joel hit the crux of his point, explaining how artists diluted their legacies by churning out albums after their peak had run out.

But despite his decision to stop writing, the music legend did not put the brakes on performing.

Though currently he is taking a break from hitting the stage after he was diagnosed with normal pressure hydrocephalus, a treatable brain condition.