Billy Joel prepares to 'Turn the Lights Back On' with first new pop song in decades

Three decades after the release of his last pop album, Billy Joel is unveiling new music.

“Turn the Lights Back On” will arrive Feb. 1 on all digital platforms and limited-edition 7-inch vinyl. A lyric video will also be released on Joel’s YouTube channel.

The song, which Joel teases in a social media post showing him turning the page on the lyrics to his 1993 song “Famous Last Words,” opens with melancholy piano chords before fading out.

Joel, who isn’t known for working with other writers, penned the song with Arthur Bacon, Wayne Hector and Freddy Wexler (Ariana Grande, Celine Dion), who also produced.

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Joel teased the possibility of new music both at his Dec. 19 residency concert at Madison Square Garden, where he told the crowd “we got a little something we’re working on you might hear sometime,” and on his social media accounts in recent days, where he posted the lyrics, “Did I wait too long … to turn the lights back on?”

Though Joel released the 2007 ballad “All My Life” as a valentine to then-wife Katie Lee, he hasn’t produced a pop album since 1993’s “River of Dreams,” and has spoken frequently about his reluctance to record new music. His last studio album, 2001’s “Fantasies & Delusions,” spotlighted his classical compositions.  

The six time Grammy winner and Rock & Roll Hall of Famer turns 75 in May, but remains a perennial road warrior. He has several stadium dates this year (joined by Stevie Nicks and Sting at some) and will wrap his residency at the Garden in July after an immensely successful decade of near-monthly shows.  

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