Billy Joel hasn’t released new music for decades — he doesn’t have to

Billy Joel has had quite a storied career since first emerging in the early ’70s. From his debut album, 1971’s “Cold Spring Harbor,” which contained “She’s Got a Way,” he’s been a staple on the radio, delivering song after song after song that still fill plenty of playlists across the country.

His songwriting is so strong, in fact, that it’s taken three albums with more than a dozen tracks each to collect all of his best work. The first two volumes of his greatest hits collection comprises more than two dozen songs from his first eight albums. The third compilation in that series came in 1997 and covers 17 more tunes that he wrote during the next decade, culminating with a pair of songs from his last record, 1993’s “River of Dreams,” along with a couple of unreleased tracks and a cut from a Leonard Cohen tribute album.

Think about that for a minute: Not counting live releases and a collection of classical compositions, Joel’s released only a dozen albums, and that was mostly over the course of two decades. He issued only one record of new material in the 1990s and hasn’t released any new songs since. With such a celebrated catalog, it’s not hard to understand why Joel hasn’t spent his time writing any new ones. He doesn’t have to, as evidenced by the six songs below, our favorite and just a small ripple in the vast sea of songs he’s written.

Taking a break from his monthly residency at Madison Square Garden, Joel is due to make a stop in Nevada, a place he’s played plenty of times before, including that time in 2001, when he reportedly helped launch the career of Michael Cavanaugh, a dueling pianist he met at New York-New York. Cavanaugh landed a gig in “Movin’ Out” thanks the original Piano Man, who was so impressed after seeing him play the keys that he put in a good word for Cavanaugh.

Generous guy. If only he would extend that generosity to the rest of us and establish a residency here, giving everybody the chance to see him more often.

‘PIANO MAN’

This song, which appeared on Joel’s sophomore album of the same name, serves as a sort of signature tune, as well as a snapshot of the singer’s salad days, which makes sense since it was reportedly inspired by a real-life rendering of him tinkling the ivories early on. While Joel does a compelling job of carving out the characters and setting the scene, the thing that’s even more awe-inspiring here is thinking about the fact that once upon a time a collection of everyday people spent a Saturday evening sitting around in some random bar listening to Billy Joel playing them songs.

‘MY LIFE’

Joel has always had a way with words, perhaps best exemplified by the tongue-twisting history lesson that is “We Didn’t Start the Fire.” But this song showcases what may be his best turn of phrase, a paradoxical quatrain in which the wordplay is particularly choice: “They will tell you you can’t sleep alone in a strange place / Then they’ll tell you can’t sleep with somebody else / Ah, but sooner or later, you sleep in your own space / Either way, it’s OK; you wake up with yourself.”

‘WE DIDN’T START THE FIRE’

Learning the words to this track — which is built around a simple chorus refrain, the only thing listeners were likely to retain after the first few listens — took some work. Singing along was like studying for a history exam, and once you had all the words mastered, you genuinely felt like giving yourself a gold star for being able to recite the complicated compendium of nouns, proper nouns and phrases that Joel had strung together.

‘YOU MAY BE RIGHT’

Kicking off the 1980 album “Glass Houses” with the sounds of shattering glass, “You May Be Right” has an evocative edge, from Joel singing about riding his motorcycle in the rain and making it home alive — which, as his prospective paramour points out, only underscores the notion that he’s out of his mind. Joel counters this with, “You may be right / I may be crazy / But it just may be a lunatic you’re looking for,” and then makes a compelling case for the two of them being ideally matched, recalling finding his friend “alone in your electric chair” and how “I told you dirty jokes until you smiled.”

‘ONLY THE GOOD DIE YOUNG’

Musically, this song is a hell of a lot of fun with its bouncing bassline and organ to the blast of sax after the midsection. Here Joel makes a case for why the virginal object of his affection should consider giving in to his overtures, but ultimately he’s not very convincing. There are some truisms present in at least part of his pitch, however: “They say there’s a heaven for those who will wait / Some say it’s better, but I say it ain’t / I’d rather laugh with the sinners than cry with the saints / The sinners are much more fun.”

‘THE LONGEST TIME’

This might be the only song in his entire catalog in which the Piano Man doesn’t accompany himself on the piano. Steeped in the doo-wop stylings that dudes probably sang on street corners and stoops in his native New York when he was growing up, “The Longest Time” is a nod to an earlier era of rock when it was all about the melody. Aside from fitting perfectly with the other throwback tunes on “Innocent Man,” particularly the like-minded gem “This Night,” this track is one of Joel’s most enticing from a vocal standpoint with its multi-layered harmonies.

Read more from Dave Herrera at reviewjournal.com. Contact him at dherrera@reviewjournal.com and follow @rjmusicdh on Twitter.