Billy Joel returns to the Grammy Awards to play his new single and close out the show

5 February 2024, 12:34 | Updated: 6 February 2024, 11:26

Billy Joel and Paul McCartney Sing 'I Saw Her Standing There'

Billy Joel gives emotional performances of 'Turn The Lights Back On' and 'You May Be Right'.

Billy Joel has racked up a remarkable 23 Grammy Award nominations over the years, and has won six trophies outright.

He's not been in the running for a long while of course, given his self-imposed exile from the recording studio, but he marked his return to new music with another comeback yesterday when he graced the Grammys stage for two stunning performances.

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Joel naturally performed his big new single 'Turn The Lights Back On', which was released only last month, and he also closed out the show with his 1980 top ten hit 'You May Be Right'.

'Turn The Lights Back On' is Joel's first new song since 2007's 'All My Life' and 'Christmas in Fallujah', and before then you have to go back to 1993 for his last studio album, River of Dreams.

Despite continuing to tour – including his record-breaking Madison Square Garden monthly residence – Joel had formally retired from new music.

"When I stopped writing songs – it was time," Joel said in 2018.

"I couldn’t be as good as I wanted and that was driving me crazy. I was driving my loved ones crazy. I thought, this is ridiculous. So I stopped."

Joel said on the Grammys red carpet that his return to writing was inspired by "life", adding "you've gotta go through things to be able to write about things".