Billy Joel Now Takes the Train to Work

Billy Joel has adopted a new, more eco-friendly way to commute to work in New York City: the Long Island Rail Road.

"I used to take a helicopter," Joel told Newsday in a recent interview, explaining that he's changed his mind on account of safety reasons. (In 2019, the Wall Street Journal reported that Joel's neighbors in Oyster Bay, New York had filed complaints that he was disrupting the neighborhood's peace with his aviation.)

But now, he says, it's the Long Island Rail Road that takes him straight into the heart of New York City where he's finishing up the last dates of his Madison Square Garden residency.

"People will sometimes look at me on the railroad and think, look at this guy, trying to look like Billy Joel," he continued. "He's not kidding anybody. It's still a great way to go."

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Joel admitted that his own staff were wary of the decision.

"'You’ll get recognized, blah, blah, blah,' I'm turning it into a big megillah," Joel said to Stephen Colbert earlier this year. "For two and a half hours, you're onstage, you're Mussolini. They're yelling your name, they're clapping, they're cheering, they're loving. ... Then you jump in a car and you drive into New York traffic and you're just another schmuck in traffic. Wait a minute, I was just Mussolini, what happened to me? And some people can't handle that transition."

Joel is scheduled to play the very last show of his residency on July 25.