Imagine like an amateur boxer, right? A teenager
who basically spends his evenings getting his
nose broken in the Golden Globes circuit. Oh,
man. Just taking heavy hits. Exactly. Taking
hits, spitting blood, and just forcing himself
back up off the mat. Now, I want you to imagine
that exact same guy sitting down at a grand piano.
Right. And he's writing some of the most sensitive,
universally beloved ballads of the 20th century.
I mean, it creates a tremendous cognitive dissonance,
doesn't it? It really does. We're just so used
to that classic, you know, delicate artist stereotype.
Like, we like to think of musical geniuses as
floating above the fray somehow. Yeah. Insulated
from the rough edges of the world. Exactly. Completely
insulated. Well, welcome to the Deep Dive. Today,
our mission is to explore the incredibly resilient,
surprising, and, I mean, at times really dark
life of William Martin Joel. That are known to
you and the rest of the world as Billy Joel.
Right. And we are pulling from a massive biographical
deep dive, tracing his journey all the way up
to early 2026. And, you know, you probably know
the staggering statistics already. Oh, sure.
The 160 million records sold. Yeah. Or that unbelievable
record breaking Madison Square Garden residency.
But there's a whole other side to this story
that you might not know. Yeah, we're talking
about his time as that teenage boxer we mentioned
or a literal onstage meltdown in the Soviet Union
during the Cold War. Not to mention the severe
health battles he faced recently in 2025. Right.
It's a narrative of these extreme stratospheric
highs. But it's anchored by some devastating
life threatening lows. Because to understand
the music, you really have to understand the
survival instinct that forged it. OK, let's unpack
this, because I promise you we are going far,
far beyond the radio hits today. Way beyond.
So before he was a music icon, he quite literally
had to fight to survive. Where does that foundational
grit actually come from? Well, it starts with
some incredibly heavy family history, actually.
He was born in the Bronx in 1949. OK. And he
grew up in Levittown and Hicksville on Long Island.
But to understand the psychology of his family,
you really have to look at his father, Howard.
Right. Because Howard escaped Nazi Germany, didn't
he? He did. And it wasn't just a matter of fleeing.
Hadred's father had built this highly prosperous
mail -order textile business back in Germany.
Wow, okay. But then in 1938, under the Nuremberg
laws, the Nazi regime basically forced the family
to sell that thriving business for an absolute
fraction of its value. Man, so there's this...
immediate generational lesson there, right? Like
everything you build, everything you own can
just be stripped away from you in an instant.
Exactly. By forces entirely outside your control.
And that sudden forced loss of everything, it
creates a really complex psychological foundation
for the family. I can imagine. They eventually
made it to America. Actually, they spent time
in Cuba first, just to bypass strict immigration
quotas. Oh, I didn't know that. Yeah. And Howard
became an engineer in the US, but he was also
a classically trained pianist. So he passed that
musical mandate down to his son. Though, I mean,
Billy started playing piano at age four very
reluctantly, right? Yeah, mostly because his
mother insisted. Right. And here is where I really
want to push back on that delicate musical prodigy
image we mentioned earlier. Please do. Because
Levittown in the 50s and 60s, it wasn't exactly
a sanctuary for sensitive piano players, you
know. No, definitely not. He was bullied a lot.
So what does he do? He takes up boxing. Yeah.
And he doesn't just hit a heavy bag in his basement
for cardio either. No. He actively competes as
a welterweight on the amateur Golden Gloves circuit.
And he was formidable, too. I mean, he won 22
out of 26 fights. That's a serious record. He
only quit because his nose was broken in his
final match. And he realized his hands, which,
you know, he kind of needed for the piano, were
taking way too much of a beating. Which is just
such a powerful lens to view his early career
through. It's like a literal boxing match. Oh,
absolutely. If you look at his initial foray
into the music business, it wasn't so. He did
not. He was playing these exhausting late night
piano bar gigs to help support his mother and
sister after his parents divorced. Right. And
because of those gigs, he overslept and actually
missed a crucial English exam. Oh, no. Yeah.
He fell one credit short of graduating. And when
he found out he famously declared, to hell with
it. If I'm not going to Columbia University,
I'm going to Columbia Records. I mean, it's a
fantastic sound bite. It is great. But reality
hit much harder than that. His early bands there
was The Hassles and then this bizarre heavy metal
organ duo called Attila. Attila. Yeah. They were
massive commercial failures. Which brings us
to a period in the late 60s and early 70s that
is just, it's almost unbearably dark. It really
is. Attila breaks up. And a major reason for
that breakup is that Billy starts an affair with
the wife of his bandmate and best friend, John
Small. Right. Her name was Elizabeth. Yeah. And
the fallout from that was absolute devastation.
He was completely estranged from his closest
friend. The guilt must have been awful. He was
consuming him. Plus, he was broke, he was evicted,
and he was literally sleeping on the floors of
laundromats. He just spiraled into a profound
clinical depression. So how bad did it actually
get? Because the 2025 HBO documentary, Billy
Joel, and so it goes, it shed a lot of new light
on this specific era, right? It did. And it got
to the absolute brink. What's fascinating here
is how openly he has finally discussed the sheer
desperation of that time. Yeah. Because he actually
attempted suicide twice. Wow. The first time.
He took an enormous overdose of sleeping pills
and fell into a coma for days. And I remember
reading that when he woke up in the hospital,
his first reaction wasn't relief, you know, like
he was furious that he survived. Right, he was
angry. So he decided he was going to do it right
the second time. And the method he chose for
that second attempt is just rough to even think
about. Yeah, it is. He drank furniture polish.
He did. He drank furniture polish. He later explained
that he chose it simply because in his deeply
clouded desperate state of mind, it, quote, looked
tastier than bleach. Oh my god. And the tragic
irony is that the person who found him and rushed
him to the hospital, ultimately saving his life,
was John Small. The very friend he had betrayed.
Exactly. That is just incredibly heavy. So he
ends up on a suicide watch ward at Meadowbrook
Hospital. He does. And that hospital stay was
a stark turning point for him. How so? Well,
if we connect this to the bigger picture, being
surrounded by people dealing with severe, unmanageable
psychiatric struggles made him realize something.
What was that? That his own problems, the guilt,
the poverty, the career failure... They were
circumstantial. They could actually be fixed.
Right. They weren't permanent. Exactly. But that
trauma, it permanently colored his songwriting.
It gave his music this really visceral, grounded
weight. I mean, his track, Tomorrow Is Today,
was actually originally written as his suicide
note. Wow. I had no idea about that. So how does
a guy go from a suicide watch ward to writing
some of the most famous songs on Earth? Well,
it wasn't a straight line. Right. Because his
first attempt at a solo album, Cold Spring Harbor,
in 1971, was yet another brutal hit, wasn't it?
Oh, it was a total technical disaster. Due to
a mastering error, the album was pressed at too
high a speed. Oh, man. And if you understand
the mechanics of analog tape, speeding it up
doesn't just make the tempo faster. It actually
alters the pitch and the timbre. So it completely
changes his voice. Exactly. Billy Joel has this
rich, baritone voice. But on that record, he
sounded artificially high, almost like a chipmunk.
That's heartbreaking after everything he'd been
through. It gets worse. The label, Family Productions,
had locked him into a predatory 10 -album contract
that completely stripped him of his publishing
rights. Wait, really? Yeah. He didn't even own
his own songs. So what does he do? He runs, he
literally flees New York for Los Angeles just
to escape this contract. Right. And he takes
a job playing at a piano bar on Wilshire Boulevard
called The Executive Room. But because he's hiding
from his label, he came and used his real name.
Nope. He works under the alias Bill Martin. Right,
and he's just playing for tips, observing the
patrons, completely anonymous. Just another guy
in a bar. And here's where it gets really interesting
because to me this is like an actor taking a
miserable anonymous day job just to pay the bills,
right? Only to realize that that miserable job
was the exact raw material they needed for their
Oscar -winning script. That's a great analogy.
He had to become a literal piano man enduring
the loneliness of a smoky bar room studying these
heartbroken isolated characters before he could
write the anthem for them. Right. That miserable
day job as Bill Martin was the exact inspiration
he needed to write his signature song, Piano
Man. It's amazing. It really is the perfect example
of transforming mundane, grinding reality into
universal art. But while Los Angeles gave him
the material for Piano Man... LA wasn't his soul.
No. His soul was tied to the frantic, abrasive
energy of New York. Exactly. Moving back to the
East Coast was the catalyst that truly unlocked
his creative potential. And that move back East
inspired the album Turnstiles, which he produced
himself. But it's when he teams up with the legendary
producer Phil Ramone that everything just explodes.
Like in 1977, they dropped The Stranger. Oh,
yeah. This album is a cultural earthquake. It
sells over 10 million copies. It officially dethrones
Simon and Garfunkel's rage over troubled water
as Columbia Records best -selling release ever.
And it was just packed with undeniable hits,
you know. Movin' Out, Only the Good Die Young,
Scenes from an Italian Restaurant. Classics.
And crucially, Just the Way You Are. Which he
wrote for Elizabeth, right? The same Elizabeth
from the bandmate drama years prior. Yes. They
had eventually married. And the mechanics of
how he wrote that song are wild. He actually
composed the melody based entirely on a dream
he had. Really? Yeah, he woke up and just wrote
it down. And he actually found out he won the
Grammys for Record of the Year and Song of the
Year for that track while sitting late at night
in a hotel room in Paris. Wow. Think about that
arc. I know. from drinking furniture polish on
a laundromat floor to a Paris hotel suite holding
two Grammys? It is an incredible ascent. But,
you know, with stratospheric success comes a
new set of problems. Which is? Well, namely,
the industry tries to categorize you. Because
just the way you are with such a massive adult
contemporary hit, critics immediately slapped
a label on him. Oh, really? They called him a
safe, mellow, soft rocker or dismissed him as
just a balladeer. And we know how the former
amateur boxer reacts to being put in a corner.
He fights back. He literally throws a rock. Like,
if you look at the cover of his 1980 album Glass
Houses, he is pictured wearing a leather jacket,
winding up to hurl a rock straight through the
glass window of his own house. It's such a great
image. It was a massive visual statement. He
was basically saying, I am shattering this image
you have of me. And the music delivered on that
threat, too. Glass Houses gave him his very first
number one hit on the Billboard Hot 100 with
It's Still Rock and Roll to Me. He definitely
proved he had teeth. But he refuses to stay in
that lane either. In 1983, he pivots completely
with An Innocent Man. Right, which is this joyous,
vocal -heavy tribute to the 50s and 60s doo -wop
and R &B he grew up listening to. Exactly. And
it features the global smash Uptown Girl. Oh,
man. There is this wild story about how that
song came to be. Yeah. He's on vacation in the
Caribbean, playing a piano at a hotel bar, and
in walk, Christie Brinkley, Whitney Houston,
and Elle McPherson. All at once. Oh my god. Which
has to be the most intimidating audience a guy
could possibly ask for while casually playing
the piano. Absolutely. And Christie Brinkley
ends up starring in the music video for Uptown
Girl. Right. She actually had to teach him how
to dance for the shoot because when she arrived
he told her point -blank... I don't dance. That's
hilarious. They struck up a romance and eventually
married in 1985. But wait, I need to understand
something here. Sure, what's that? The guy singing
Uptown Girl, who is married to a supermodel and
absolutely dominating MTV, decides to go to Soviet
Russia at the height of the Cold War in 1987?
Yeah. How does that even work? Why on earth would
he do that? Well, it was an unprecedented move
in cultural diplomacy. He really wanted to break
through the Iron Curtain using music. OK. It
was one of the very first fully staged arena
level pop rock shows to ever enter the USSR.
But the reality of playing there was a volatile
mix of historic triumph and absolute disaster.
Really? How so? So the Soviet audience had never
experienced an energetic, visceral American rock
show. They were completely stiff. Just not knowing
how to react. Right. And part of the problem
was the production itself. They brought a documentary
film crew. And to make sure the cameras could
capture the massive crowds, the harsh stadium
lights were turned all the way up, blasting the
audience. That's incredibly awkward for a concert.
Very. And on top of that, strict Soviet security
guards were patrolling the aisles, physically
removing anyone who stood up, damped, or showed
too much emotion. Wow. So the crowd was essentially
frozen in terror. Which, I mean, for a performer
who thrives on the kinetic energy of a live crowd
has to be pure torture. It broke him. He was
trying to connect, and he was met with this terrified,
brightly lit wall of silence. He became so enraged
by the lights and the security that he experienced
a full -blown meltdown on stage. He flipped his
piano, right? He flipped his electric piano completely
over and violently snapped a heavy microphone
stand in half. Oh my god. All while refusing
to stop singing. See, the boxer comes out again.
When he feels cornered, he fights. Exactly. And
financially, the tour was a massive loss. He
spent an estimated $1 million of his own money
to fund the production. That's a huge hit. But
historically, the impact was monumental. It resulted
in the first live rock radio broadcast in Soviet
history. Amazing. It perfectly encapsulates what
drove him. Like, he cared deeply about forcing
an authentic human connection, far more than
he cared about the financial loss or the political
rules. But, you know, as we push into the 90s
and the 2000s, while he is at the absolute zenith
of his global fame, the foundation beneath him
starts fracturing. Yes, it does. Because the
financial betrayals he faced around this time
are just staggering. They were deeply personal
betrayals, too. He discovered massive accounting
discrepancies and fraud orchestrated by his manager,
Frank Weber. And Weber wasn't just his manager.
No. He was his former brother -in -law and the
godfather to his child. Weber was allegedly using
Billy's money to float his own dubious investments.
Wow. So Billy sued him for $90 million. Yes.
And if that wasn't enough, he later had to sue
his own prominent music lawyer, Alan Grubman,
for another $90 million. Geez. Yeah. Alleging
a conflict of interest and further financial
mismanagement. It's just incredible that he was
fighting these massive corporate and legal battles
while simultaneously fighting for the working
class out on the water. Oh, the fishermen protest.
Yeah. In 1992, he joined a protest with East
Hampton fishermen. The state had introduced new
regulations that were really threatening the
livelihood of these local Baymen. Right. And
Billy Joel didn't just write a check to a charity,
he went out on a boat with them. He got right
in the middle of it. He was charged by the state
with fishing out of season and using banned methods?
Like, he risked actual arrest to defend them
because he remembered working on an oyster dredger
as a teenager. That alignment with the working
class is such a consistent thread with him. Absolutely.
Now, he did step into the broader political arena
at times. I mean, he played a benefit for Barack
Obama with Bruce Springsteen in 2008, and he
endorsed Andrew Cuomo in the 2025 mayoral race.
Right. Alongside donating to various Democrats
over the decades. Yes. Now, just a quick note
for you listening. Our goal today is strictly
to impartially unpack the history exactly as
it's documented. You know, we're not here to
endorse any specific political. Exactly, just
reporting the facts from the source material.
But looking objectively at the history, Joel's
approach to his audience regarding politics was
fascinating. He famously told his crowds that
people who pay hard -earned money for concert
tickets don't want to be lectured on who to vote
for. Which makes sense. So when the house lights
went down he kept the show entirely focused on
the music. And regarding that music, the early
90s is where he makes a massive, unprecedented
creative pivot. Oh, right. Following his 1993
album, River of Dreams, he essentially retires
from writing pop music. OK, I have to stop you
there. Because when I hear that a pop superstar
at the absolute peak of his career just stops
writing lyrics, my first thought isn't authenticity.
What is it? My first thought is fear. I mean,
if you write Piano Man and Uptown Girl, don't
you just get terrified that your next song is
gonna flop? It's a valid question. Is it possible
he'd just quit while he was ahead so he didn't
have to face a critical decline? It's a fair
challenge, for sure. But if we look at the mechanics
of his composition, it wasn't fear. It was...
exhaustion with the format. Exhaustion. Yeah.
Pop music has very rigid structures, you know,
verse, chorus, bridge, three and a half minutes.
He felt he had entirely exhausted what he could
say within those confines. Ah. So he didn't stop
creating. He just shifted formats entirely. Yeah.
In 2001, he released an album of classical compositions
called Fantasies and Delusions. And that wasn't
just a vanity project, was it? Not at all. It
hit number one on the classical charts. The expansive
canvas of classical music allowed him to express
what pop structures no longer could. So what
does this all mean, like for his legacy? Well,
it means he refused to manufacture art just to
stay relevant. I mean, he even canceled a three
million dollar memoir in 2011. He returned the
advance. He returned a massive advance because
he realized he had no interest in dissecting
his past. If he didn't have a new song burning
inside him, he wouldn't force it. That's incredibly
rare. And the fans clearly respected that authenticity.
I mean, he transitions into this unbelievable
live fixture of the garden shows. Yeah. He takes
over Madison Square Garden, eventually being
named the venue's first ever music franchise.
Sitting right alongside legendary franchises
like the Knicks and the Rangers. They even raised
a banner to the Rafters with the number 12 on
it honoring his record for the most consecutive
sold -out shows. But just when the world had
him comfortably pegged as you know a legacy touring
act settling into his residency His life took
a series of wild turns in 2024 and 2025. It really
did. In 2024, out of nowhere, he releases Turn
the Lights Back On, his first new pop single
in decades. Yeah, that was a huge surprise. And
later that same year, He concluded that historic
Madison Square Garden residency with his 150th
lifetime performance at the venue. 150 shows.
150 shows at the garden. It's just staggering.
And 2025 brought an avalanche of reflection too.
The two -part HBO documentary premiered, giving
audiences that raw, unfiltered look at his early
traumas. Right. And this was paired with the
release of a massive 155 -track playlist featuring
rarities, unreleased live cuts, and demos. But
2025 also brought a punch from his own body that
he really didn't see coming. Yeah. In May of
that year, he faced a severe health crisis. Yes,
he did. He was diagnosed with normal pressure
hydrocephalus. Which sounds terrifying. It is.
To understand how terrifying... this is for a
musician, you really have to look at the mechanism
of the condition. What happens exactly? It occurs
when excess cerebrospinal fluid accumulates in
the brain's ventricles. That fluid builds up.
and literally squeezes the brain tissue. Oh,
wow. And this pressure severely impacted his
hearing, his vision, and his balance. Which are
the exact faculties a live performer relies on
most. Exactly. It mimics symptoms of dementia
or Parkinson's, and it forced him to immediately
cancel all his upcoming concerts. But, true to
form, he didn't stay down on the mat. By July
2025, he was doing interviews with People Magazine
and sitting down with Bill Maher, explaining
that the condition is actually treatable and
that he was already feeling significantly better.
Yeah, it's amazing. I am just in awe of the sheer
resilience. Like, you look at the arc of this
life, from surviving multiple suicide attempts
and drinking furniture polish in his 20s. To
battling massive corporate fraud in his 40s.
Right, to fighting a severe neurological disorder
in his 70s, and through it all, he is still recovering,
still playing, still finding a way forward. This
raises an important question, I think, about
what it actually takes to endure in an industry
and really a world that is notoriously designed
to chew people up and spit them out. Yeah. He
didn't just survive. He adapted. He fought back
against critics who tried to label him. He fought
back against predatory executives who tried to
own him. And he fiercely guarded his own authenticity.
That is the perfect way to encapsulate it. Billy
Joel isn't just the guy playing piano man in
a smoky lounge. Not at all. He is a golden loves
boxer. He is a classical composer. He is a defender
of the working class. And above all, he is a
survivor of immense personal financial and physical
trial. His life is living proof that the most
enduring resonant melodies often emerge from
the hardest hits we take. Beautifully said. So
the next time you hear Billy Joel song at a party
or it comes on the radio while you're driving,
remember that you aren't just hearing a catchy
pop tune. No, you're not. You are hearing the
resilience of a man who survived his absolute
darkest moments to give the world a soundtrack.
A soundtrack that continues to bridge generations,
decades after the vinyl was pressed. Which leaves
us with a final thought for you to mull over
today. Billy Joel walked away from writing pop
music for 30 years because he felt his story
in that format was complete. Right. He absolutely
refused to force out content just for a paycheck.
Exactly. Or just to keep his name in the news
cycle. And in today's hyper -connected world
where you and I are constantly pressured to produce,
to post, to share, to stay relevant 24 -7. It's
exhausting. It is. So what could you gain by
having the courage to simply step away from the
microphone when you have nothing left to say?
trusting that the work you've already done will
speak for itself. Exactly. Think about it because
sometimes the most powerful move a fighter can
make is knowing exactly when it's time to take
off the gloves.