Billy Joel: ‘I’ll quit music when my voice goes’

Billy Joel will retire from music when his voice can no longer do his songs justice.
The Uptown Girl singer, 69, quit songwriting 25 years ago, but has been enjoying a record-breaking residency, at New York City’s Madison Square Garden, since 2014.
In an interview with Vulture.com the veteran performer was asked what would make him stop playing live and replied: “If I can’t sing as well as I should.”
Although he said he’s not ready to retire yet, the star confessed that he fears he may not be able to sing for too much longer.
“I’m already struggling,” Billy explained. “I wrote most of the songs that I’m doing when I was in my 20s and 30s and it ain’t easy to hit those notes in my 60s. We’ve dropped the keys of some songs already. Hopefully it’s not that noticeable. If I’m having a tough time hitting notes – I call it throwing junk (bad baseball) pitches. Instead of having a fastball you throw off-speed. If I’ve got to throw too much junk, I’m going to consider stopping.”
Although he called performing “the greatest job in the world”, the musician said that when he felt the time was right it would be easy to walk away as he felt it would be “abhorrent” to shortchange fans by “faking it”.
However, the star said that unlike Elton John and Paul Simon, who have announced their musical farewells, he has no plans to bow out just yet.
Billy added: “There have been times when I’ve felt these are my last shows; it’s time for me to get off the bl**ding stage. Then I just thought, nah.”
Last week (end22Jul18) he marked his 100th show at the Garden, with shows set to continue until at least December (18).