Billy Joel Hates Singing His Biggest Hit And Almost Always Refuses To Play It

Summary

• Despite his success, Billy Joel is a self-proclaimed perfectionist who regrets some of his biggest hit singles.
• Joel dislikes "We Didn't Start the Fire" and other popular songs in his discography for their melodies.
• The singer-songwriter has reservations about playing and creating sequels to his most successful songs due to their quality.

With a treasure trove of accolades, including six Grammy Awards and a spot among the best-selling music artists in the world, Billy Joel has earned his fair share of bragging rights in the music industry. But behind the shiny trophies and chart-toppers, Joel is a brutal perfectionist, once admitting that he’d scrap about 25% of his discography if he could start over.

Shockingly, the now 75-year-old’s self-criticism doesn’t solely apply to singles that didn’t climb the charts as expected, it also targets some of his biggest hits. In this article, we'll dive into the hit single Joel can't stand and uncover other chart-toppers in his catalog that he’s less than thrilled with.

Billy Joel Hates Isn’t A Huge Fan Of "We Didn't Start The Fire"

With a staggering 33 Top 40 hits on the Billboard Hot 100 chart and over 150 million records in circulation, Billy Joel has plenty to be proud of when it comes to his music. However, speaking to the Los Angeles Times in March 2023, Joel admitted he’d scrap “at least 25%” of his songs were he to start over.

“I’ve written some real stinkers I wish I could take back… Sometimes I’d get six or seven songs I thought were pretty damn good, then there’d be a couple of squeeze-outs at the end just to fill up the album. I realize now I shouldn’t have done that.”

Of the songs Joel isn’t particularly fond of is his Grammy-nominated single, 'We Didn’t Start the Fire'. Released in 1989 as part of Joel’s eleventh studio album, ‘Storm Front’, the hit song went on to top the US Billboard Hot 100 chart and receive a Grammy Award nomination for Record of the Year. Despite its remarkable success, Joel isn’t exactly proud of the song, comparing its catchy melody to everything from a 'dentist’s drill' to 'a mosquito buzzing around your head'.

In a 1993 interview with documentary maker David Horn, Joel criticized the song, going as far as demonstrating just how banal its melody is.

"A song like ‘We Didn’t Start the Fire’, it’s really not much of a song. If you go like this," Joel then played the melody on the piano, driving his point home with a humorous dance.

"It’s a terrible piece of music. But It started as a whole different song. The original song I had was this country idea that I had… But when you take the melody by itself, terrible, it’s like a dentist drill."

It wouldn’t be the last time Joel would criticize the song. In an October 2021 episode of We Didn’t Start The Fire: A History Podcast, the now 75-year-old yet again chastised the song’s melody.

“I wrote the lyrics first, I wrote the words first, which is why the music is so horrible in that song. I usually write the music first and then I write lyrics. But in that song, the melody… its like a mosquito buzzing around in your head, its more annoying than musical. And then there’s the chorus… which is sort of an attempt at a melody. It’s kind of the weirdest song that I ever wrote like that, because like I said, I wrote the words first, and I never do that, which is my excuse for writing such lousy melody.”

However, elsewhere in the interview, Joel expressed his frustration over the widespread criticism the song has received in recent years.

“The only thing I’ve heard about that song from people is, ‘I hate that song!' Some people hate that song. It’s one of the most hated things I ever wrote! And I don’t get the hate.”

Joel went on to admit that he doesn't detest the song in its entirety. Contrary to popular sentiment, the singer-songwriter is rather fond of the song's lyrics.

“I mean, I hate the music, because it’s not good. But I think the lyrics are fairly clever, I think I did a pretty good job with the words”.

Why Billy Joel Refuses To Play One Of His Biggest Hits Of All Time

With over 3 million records sold globally, ‘We Didn’t Start the Fire’ is certainly one of Billy Joel’s most successful singles, rivaled only by 'Piano Man', 'Just the Way You Are', and 'Uptown Girl'.

The song's massive success might explain why Joel keeps getting bombarded with requests to drop a sequel about what went down after the original. However, the now 75-year-old has been dead set against it, citing the subpar quality of the original as a major deterrent.

He told documentary maker David Horn: “I wrote one song already and I don't think it was really that good to begin with, melodically."

The singer-songwriter remained steadfast even after Fall Out Boy released their widely panned 2023 cover of the song.

“Everybody’s been wanting to know when there’s going to be an updated version of it, because my song started in ’49 and ended in ’89 — it was a 40-year span. Everybody said, ‘Well, aren’t you going to do a part two?’ I said, ‘Nah, I’ve already done part one.’ So, Fall Out Boy, go ahead. Great, take it away.”

Given his less-than-stellar sentiments about the song, it wouldn’t be shocking if Joel axed 'We Didn’t Start the Fire' from his tour lineup, much like he ditched his greatest hit 'Just the Way You Are' back in the 90s.

"I don't do `Just the Way You Are,'” he admitted during a 1994 concert stop in Albany, New York. " "It's a well-written song, but playing it makes me feel like I'm in a wedding band or in a cocktail lounge. There is something hackneyed about it."

Billy Joel Isn’t A Big Fan Of Many Of His Biggest Hits

As it turns out, 'We Didn't Start the Fire' isn't the only hit single in Billy Joel's discography that he's less than pleased with. Speaking to the Los Angeles Times in May 2023, Joel criticized several other fan-favorite singles, including 'When in Rome' from his eleventh album, Storm Front and 'C’était Toi' from his seventh album, 'Glass Houses'.

“I don’t even speak French,” he said of 'C’était Toi,' one of his biggest musical regrets, in his 2023 interview with the Los Angeles Times, “so I don’t know what I was doing."

Joel also has some reservations about ‘Tell Her About It,’ from his ninth studio album, ‘An Innocent Man’, which he compared to "something Tony Orlando and Dawn would have done" during a concert stop in Albany, New York.

Shockingly, even 'Piano Man,' Joel’s signature hit, widely lauded for its cultural, artistic, and historic significance, hasn't escaped his criticism.

Joel said of the hit single in a 2006 interview:

“I have no idea why [‘Piano Man’] became so popular. It’s like a karaoke favourite. The melody is not very good and very repetitious, while the lyrics are like limericks. I was shocked and embarrassed when it became a hit. But my songs are like my kids, and I look at that song and think: ‘My kid did pretty well.'”