Billy Joel believes in leaving on a high note.
The five-time Grammy winner said he stopped writing music after his 1993 album “River of Dreams” because he felt like “I was done.”
“I didn’t want to lock myself in a cave and devote myself like a monk to writing anymore. I had done it 12 times,” he told music producer Rick Beato in an interview posted to YouTube on Monday.
The “Uptown Girl” singer added that he also had a wife, ex Christie Brinkley, and a young daughter — his oldest, Alexa — at the time. Joel and Brinkley divorced in 1994.
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He said he realized the Beatles made 12 albums and “that was just enough for me.”
“And I decided I was not going to do it anymore because I’ve heard artists who keep putting out records and they really … they dilute their legacy,” he added. “Maybe they’re not as good as they used to be, or they’re not as motivated as they were, but it ends up trailing off. I didn’t want to go like that.”
The “Piano Man” singer didn’t name any of the aging artists he had in mind.
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He admitted that “it’s not easy to do ” after Beato said he respected his decision to let his past music stand for itself.
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“Saying ‘no’ sometimes is really hard to do,” he said, adding that, however, he did do an album of classical piano pieces afterward.
“That’s where I wanted to go. I was ready to do that,” he said. “I didn’t want to just keep beating a dead horse and keep being played because I was Billy Joel. I wanted it to be good, and I recognized that I didn’t have the same motivation I used to have, so I said, ‘Stop. Don’t kill it.’”