Songwriter’s Best Billy Joel Takes The Singer’s Approach Rather Than A Composer’s Tack In New Album

‘Look,” says Billy Joel. “A ‘Greatest Hits’ album is essentially used cars. I know it and the people buying it know it.

“And radio, they know it. Everybody knows it. I don’t know why record companies try to make believe that this is something new. They’re used cars! But, hey, there’s nothing wrong with buying a used car as long as it’s a good used car.”

Joel is nonchalantly chatting about his “Greatest Hits, Volume III,” which just hit the stores. It contains tracks dating back to 1983, from his poppy tribute to former wife Christie Brinkley (“Matter of Trust”), to his sociological take on world events (“We Didn’t Start the Fire”), to a song inspired by onetime girlfriend Elle MacPherson (“And So It Goes”), to an engaging duet with Ray Charles (“Baby Grand”).

However, this is a “Greatest Hits” disc with a twist. Joel says he wasn’t up for any “new cars”; in fact, he’s planning to de-emphasize his pop career to write classical music in the future. But he did add three cover songs in tribute to his favorite pop songwriters: Bob Dylan’s “To Make You Feel My Love,” Carole King’s pop-soul/Phil Spector-era “Hey Girl,” and Leonard Cohen’s probing ballad, “Life Is the Breeze.”

“This was an opportunity for me to actually perform as just a singer, which is a very different approach for me,” Joel says from his home in the Hamptons. “I don’t think of myself as a singer. I think of myself as a composer and a songwriter and piano player. Singing is one of the last things that I think about. But it was fun. I guess it’s sort of like a director deciding to act.”

It has become common for many artists to do full-length cover albums (Dwight Yoakam is the latest to join that trend), but Joel didn’t want to go that far. Three cover songs were enough for him.

“I don’t think I’d want to do a cover album, but even when I’m writing, the influences are coming out anyway. Like ‘Innocent Man’ was an out-and-out tribute to the music of the early ‘60s, the R&B music that I liked. And ‘Nylon Curtain’ was pretty much a tribute to the Beatles’ late albums. I can find stuff in all my albums where the influences are there pretty clearly. But, like I said, I don’t think of myself as a singer per se of other people’s material. This is probably the one time I thought about doing it. So now I can say, ‘OK, I did that.”’

These are days of transition for Joel. He’s planning one last tour with Elton John next year before he quits major touring for good. “I’ve been on the road for 30 years. I’m starting to feel like Willy Loman in ‘Death of a Salesman,”’ he says. “I want to work out of the home office. Send the young guys out there with the Fuller brush bag.”

As for today’s pop world, Joel feels detached from it (he does like Tori Amos and Pearl Jam, though), and he is cynical about what kind of acts are getting signed by most record companies.

“Record companies generally sign people who can’t sing and can’t write. You and I know if they tracked down Adolf Hitler in Argentina, they’d be waving checks at the guy: ‘We want you on our label!’ But if there’s a new Mozart, people would say, ‘Well, just leave your tape on the desk.”’

Returning to the subject of his new “Greatest Hits” disc, Joel wants to make one point clear: that he feels this late-era music is better overall than what he wrote earlier in his career. Personally, I agree with him, though Joel knows that many other people might not.

“A lot of times I’m asked, ‘Don’t you think your earlier stuff was your better stuff?’ And I say, ‘No, I actually like my later stuff. … I’m the writer and I’m closer to those. They’re newer to me. They’re like having younger children. You always pay more attention to the little kids than to the older ones.”

By including “Matter of Trust” on the disc, Joel knew he’d invite questions about his former wife, Brinkley, but he’s not going to shirk them. “That’s OK. What are you going to do? Deny that you felt like that? No, not at all. That was a very honest, strong emotion and, at the time, that’s how I felt. … Yeah, you can’t deny where you’ve been or how you felt. Not at all. And I actually see myself as pointing toward some crises that were going on. I listen to a song like ‘And So It Goes,’ and I listen to ‘Lullabye,’ and I hear the anxiety in those songs.”

He admits, though, that “And So It Goes” was written not about Brinkley but about model Elle MacPherson, with whom he had a romance after his marriage broke up. The lyric “And so it goes - and so will you soon, I suppose,” was prophetic.

“Elle was 19 and I was 33. I knew it was star-crossed. It was doomed and wasn’t going to last. She was too young and I was too old. She was too tall and I was too short. She was too pretty and I was too ugly. But, man, while it lasted, it was great. I had a heavy crush on her.”