Bob Dylan’s opinion on Billy Joel

One of the most prolific and influential songwriters of all time, Bob Dylan was crucial to the evolution of music worldwide, and certainly, it wouldn’t have been the same without him. Over the decades, he didn’t give many interviews or talk much about other artists. However, he once shared his opinion on the also influential and successful American artist Billy Joel.

Eight years younger than Dylan, Billy Joel started his career in 1964, but would only achieve fame almost a decade later, in 1971, with the release of his groundbreaking album Piano Man.

Bob Dylan’s opinion on Billy Joel

In 1997, when Joel was already one of the most succesful American artists in history, he released “Greatest Hits: Volume III”. But he included a few new tracks in it. One was “Hey Girl”, originally written by Gerry Goffin and Carole King and the other one was “Make You Feel My Love”, written by Bob Dylan.

During a press conference in London that year, Dylan was asked by  Serge Kaganski what was his opinion on Billy Joel recording his song. The Folk Rock musician praised Joel and gave his opinon on the version.

“Billy Joel’s a very dynamic artist and he can hear things in a song because he’s also a songwriter. He managed to probably convey that song in a different way than me. Nevertheless, he got something out of that song I would have never dreamed of myself. That’s what happens when you write a song. Somebody can definitely interpret it a different way than the person who wrote it.”

Bob Dylan continued explaining how Joel ended up recording the song

“Well, all these songs were given to my record company before this particular album was released so they could see what I was recording and decide whether they wanted to release it or not, because we were recording a lot of stuff.”

“At a certain point we stopped recording and said, ‘Let’s give this to the record company and see if they even want to release a record like this.’ I wasn’t sure what was going to be on this record and what was not going to be on this record.”

He continued:

“Billy had heard this song. At that time I wasn’t really positive one way or another whether it was going to be included, so might as well let Billy do it. I don’t think there were any demos on these songs. We went in and recorded them exactly the way you’re hearing them,” Bob Dylan said.

In that same year Bob Dylan released his version on his album “Time Out of Mind”. Since then, it has been covered by more than 400 different artists, including Adele, Bryan Ferry, Boy George and Pink.

The two already knew each other and had played together in the “We Are The World” charity project in the 80s. In an interview back in 1997 (Transcribed by Rock and Roll Garage), Joel recalled how he ended up recording the track. “I haven’t been writing popular music for the last couple of years. I haven’t been writing songs, I have been writing classical music. (Then) I was going to put out a greatest hits album but I wanted something new. Aside from just the used cars that are on the album already.”

“I tried to pick songs by people who I thought were great songwriters. Who have been really important in my day. Carol King, Leonard Cohen and  Bob Dylan. (Bob is) probably the most influential songwriter of my era and I heard this song. It came to my house via this guy who worked for Bob. I heard (his original demo version),” Billy Joel said.

Bob Dylan covered Billy Joel’s song “New York State of Mind” in 2023

Although Bob Dylan wrote more than 600 songs during his career and has a huge discography to pick songs for a setlist he often cover tracks by artists he admire. Back in 2023, when playing in New Yor City, he covered Billy Joel’s famous track “New York State of Mind”. But as usual, the version was quite different from the original one.

That track was originally released by Billy on his 1976 praised album “Turnstiles”.