Forgiving Billy Joel: The Piano Man Returns with an Apology and AI

The Piano Man has returned. He’s never really left us but is back with the first new song in thirty years. The final song on his last album, River of Dreams, was titled “Famous Last Words,” which is a great final song if an artist is going to go quiet for thirty years.

But let me stop and tell you how pissed I’ve been at Billy Joel for three decades now. He didn’t stop singing, but he stopped creating art. Or, perhaps it’s more proper to state that he stopped publishing new art. I suspect dozens of songs will be released posthumously when Billy Joel dies. But this one, “Turn The Lights Back On,” is the first new song he published in thirty years, which means something.

The Piano Man went silent when unscrupulous people stole his money. His divorce shattered something inside him that used to write about love and heartache. He could no longer convey that pain in new words and music for some reason. As the Piano Woman Tori Amos sang about, he was Silent All These Years.

And today, Billy released his first video in thirty years for Turn The Lights Back On. The song is a romantic ballad filled with all that heartache of the past and a plea for forgiveness. After all, the Piano Man is only human. He sang about this long ago when he got his Second Wind.

However, the video is controversial because it employs Artificial Intelligence, which some will immediately dismiss out of fear and myopia, refusing to understand how commercial art has changed practically overnight. Dismissing art because of the technical tools used to compose it is as shortsighted as the critic in the 1900s who refused to read novels written on typewriters or those at the turn of the last century who refused to ride in any “horseless carriage.” They sound like fools.

How does the art make you feel? That is all that matters. And this one makes me feel empathy and sympathy for the old singer who knows he’s done wrong by abandoning us for so long when we needed his voice so much.

The new video begins with Old Billy playing onstage in an empty theater. Old hands hold a notebook upon which are written the lyrics to that last final song, “Famous Last Words.” The old hand turns the page, and the new song begins. Thus ends three decades of silence in art. Through clever camera movements, we are transported to young Billy, with his half-fro, smoking a cigarette in the ashtray on the piano, as we’ve always imagined the scene playing in our heads while his music hums in our hearts. We see early 1980s Billy singing this song. Then, in the late 80s, Billy. Then, the 90s Billy and finally the old man again.

Billy Joel abandoned us in the middle of his midlife crisis. “You’re on your own, dipshits.” That’s what he said to us with his silence. And for thirty years, he left us high and dry. While Bob Dylan’s voice crawled into and out of the grave, exploring all the facets of living and dying, Billy Joel sang his old hits repeatedly.

But the Piano Man is back, and he’s sorry. I forgive him. Do you?