The 11 best Billy Joel songs

Why have a Top 10 when you can have 11? We rank the very best of Billy Joel ahead of his UK dates in June 2025

From flinging the test pressing of his debut album into the streets “like a frisbee” in anger to still gracing the world’s biggest stages at the age of 75 as one of the most celebrated singer-songwriters in popular music history, the moral of the Billy Joel story is: if you have a talent, stick with it.

After a career defining headline performance at American Express presents BST Hyde Park last year and a single European performance in Cardiff this summer, the Piano Man has announced two dates in Edinburgh and Liverpool next June.

If you can’t wait until then, here’s our 2-cents on the best 11 Billy Joel tracks of all time.

11. Zanzibar

(52nd Street, 1978)

‘Zanzibar’ is all about sticking on your jazziest Cuban collar shirt and heading to a sports bar to fall in love with the waitress, which for some reason sounds like the most 1970s activity possible. The jazziness of it all, including two sublime solos from trumpet maestro Freddie Hubbard, adds a layer of fun and fancy irony to a context that is otherwise quotidian and unexotic.

10. Just The Way You Are

(The Stranger, 1977)

One of Shrek’s “personal favourites,” as we find out in the karaoke scene at the end of the fist film, the doting ‘Just The Way You Are’ has also been a go-to slow dance at office parties and first dance at weddings since its release in 1977. It’s why Joel almost never released it, finding it too “gloppy”; his producer Phil Ramone was right to persuade him otherwise, as it became his first US Top 10 and gold-certified single, attracting covers from Frank Sinatra and Barry White. You may have heard of them…

9. My Life

(52nd Street, 1978)

But back to Billy Joel. This ludicrously catchy and off-kilter bop is all about taking back control and doing your own thing – though, ironically, as the theme tune to sitcom Bosom Buddies, many also remember it as the introduction of Tom Hanks to the world.

8. You’re My Home

(Piano Man, 1973)

Amid Joel’s arsenal of love songs, this folk rock gem is often forgotten, when really its gorgeous layers of hazy acoustic guitars and brittle pianos actually make it one of his best.

7. You May Be Right

(Glass Houses, 1980)

Spoiler alert: there’s no ‘We Didn’t Start The Fire’ on this list. It’s a great socio-political snippet of post-war America, but when it comes to Joel’s rock’n’roll phase there is only room for one in this 11-song town. ‘You May Be Right’ is full of riffs – that repeated motif after the chorus sounds like it has inspired many a jangly post-punk number – and is one of Joel’s best songs live: at BST Hyde Park last year he ended his two hour set with this one.

6. She’s Always A Woman

(The Stranger, 1977)

Another of Joel’s songs dedicated to his first wife Elizabeth, the Piano Man dropped this song from his live shows for many years, apparently drifting off mid-song, wondering what he would have for dinner after the show. Fear not: taking one for the team, he eventually managed to put the past behind him and it’s now a mainstay on the setlist.

5. Vienna

(The Stranger, 1977)

An indisputable classic that came to Joel in a “Promethean moment,” this piano ballad begins with a touch of melancholy that slowly heals as the song unfolds and his lyrics buoy us up: “Slow down, you’re doin’ fine/ You can’t be everything you wanna be before your time.” It’s a parental reassurance that you don’t need to achieve everything in your youth; a reminder to respect and look forward to your golden years.

4. Summer, Highland Falls

(Turnstiles, 1976)

Without a proper chorus, ‘Summer, Highland Falls’ was never going to be a record label’s favourite, but perhaps that’s what makes it so loved by fans – and by Joel himself. The lyrics “Sadness or euphoria” capture the song’s essence of manic depression, and, as he has explained, the left hand plays the low and slow (sadness) while the right hand flits about spritely (euphoria). Together the parts make the song as affecting as is, much like how extreme highs and deep lows have punctuated the genius of the world’s great artists.

3. Scenes From An Italian Restaurant

(The Stranger, 1977)

“A bottle of white? A bottle of red? Perhaps a bottle of rose instead?” It’s the perfect way to set the scene inside Joel’s Italian restaurant in what is surely his most theatrical song. Through musical and lyrical queues, such as “You drop a dime in the box play a / Song about New Orleans”, ‘Scenes From An Italian Restaurant’ sweeps back in time as two friends catch up and reminisce, including a section on two college cool kids Brendan and Eddie whose love peaked too soon. Of course, these characters and vignettes are ways of Joel, and the listener, looking back at their own life, but as if seeing it played out in third person – as if from theatre seats, or from a table at Fontana di Trevi on West 57th Street.

2. New York State Of Mind

(Turnstiles, 1976)

Coming to him on his journey back to the Big Apple after living on the West Coast for three years, Billy Joel supposedly wrote ‘New York State Of Mind’ as soon as he got off the Greyhound. Something about its smoky, jazzy bittersweetness is just so classy and simply captures the spirit of NYC, joining classic tributes to the city such as ‘New York, New York’ and ‘On Broadway’.

1. Piano Man

(Piano Man, 1973)

If you were expecting a contrarian take (who, us?!) then apologies. As one fan commented on similar discussion on Reddit wrote, “It’s okay to say Piano Man guys”. It’s not really just Joel’s defining song because of its popularity and sweet melody, but also because it spotlights a young singer-songwriter earning a buck as a lounge pianist in Los Angeles after a failed debut album and rocky label relationship back in New York. It’s wistful, thanks again to Joel’s cast of characters, but this dreamt nostalgia almost seems to foretell his success. ‘Piano Man’ would be Joel’s breakout hit, and 40 years after its release it was inducted into the the Grammy Hall of Fame.