Music legend Billy Joel has a new song coming out.
He teased his first new release in 17 years on Instagram Wednesday stating, “It’s time to TURN THE LIGHTS BACK ON.”
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A short clip of his new single, “Turn the Lights Back on,” accompanied the announcement with the news that the song is going to drop on Feb. 1.
According to People Magazine, the 74-year-old virtuoso first spoke about the upcoming release during a performance last year. He said, “We’ve got a little something we’ve been working on you might hear sometime.”
This will be his first release since his 2007 Collected Additional Masters, per his website.
In 2013, he told the New York Times that he “got bored” with the music industry.
He noted, “Way back in the early ’70s, I used to do somersaults, flips off the piano. I would climb up the cables and hang upside down, anything to get attention. When you’re an opening act, you gotta do whatever you can.”
Topping that was hard to do, but his musicality carried him through the ‘80s and ‘90s. But he also worked hard at his craft.
This led him to declare his frustration with Mozart. He stated, “Mozart pisses me off because he’s like a naturally gifted athlete. You listen to Mozart and you go: ‘Of course. It all came easy to him,’” per the New york Times.
He also decried the music industry pressures. He explained, “It’s indentured servitude when you sign with a record company. I don’t even own my own masters. They own the masters.”
He even attempted to write a memoir, but the publishing industry also added unnecessary pressures with a plot to focus on Joel’s low points centered around, “divorce, depression and drinking,” via the New York Times.
“They wanted more sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll, and there’s not that much in my life…” he added.
“I wasn’t interested in doing a tell-all. I’m not going to talk about people who I was involved in relationships with. I’m just not that guy,” he concluded.
Just how much control Joel has over his new work is uncertain; “Turn the Lights Back On” is being released through Columbia Records.
His teaser post already has over 32,000 likes, displaying how long overdue this highly anticipated song is to fans.