Despite the recent appearance of "All My Life," his first new pop song in 14 years, Billy Joel says he doesn't foresee a re-opening of the creative floodgates that led to 33 Top 40 hits.

"I'm not ruling out the possibility of writing songs again," Joel tells Billboard.com. "I suppose if I had the motivation to write a song, I'm not gonna stop myself from doing it. I just haven't felt the compulsion to write songs in pop form. I guess these days I just think of myself as a composer."

Joel - whose last album of original material, "River of Dreams," came out in 1993 and concluded with, appropriately, a track called "Famous Last Words" - says that he currently has "lots of thematic pieces" that he's composed in the Long Island home he shares with his third wife, culinary journalist Katie Lee Joel.

"Some of them are fragments," he notes, "some of them are halfway (finished). There's so many different ways to go with that music. I don't even want to call them classical pieces," adds Joel, who released a classical album, "Fantasies & Delusions," in 2001. "It's piano music. It's pieces that can be used for orchestra. Some of these things might be used for a movie soundtrack. I'm not even all that anxious to have them performed. Right now all I'm interested in is just composing and writing music. If something happens with it, great. If something doesn't happen, that's fine."

"All My Life," meanwhile, was something of a surprise. Joel composed the American Songbook-flavored track in 2005 as a first anniversary gift for his wife, with hopes that Tony Bennett would record it. He decided to make his own version for their second anniversary - "Call me a cheapskate," he cracks - and was surprised when Columbia Records executives campaigned to release it as a digital single.

And if nothing else, he notes, it's given him at least one new song to perform at his shows, although he wraps up his current road trek May 9th, 2007 in St. Paul, Minnesota, and has no definite plans ahead of him.

"Look," Joel says, "I still love rock and roll. I still love pop music. I haven't divorced myself from the material I wrote before. That's why I'm out here on the road playing this stuff. I still believe in it."

"That's it for the special effects. The piano goes this way. The piano goes that way," US superstar Billy Joel said just seven songs into last night's terrific two-hour show. It was his long-awaited London debut.

Joel and his grand piano had just been rotated by stage machinery. It made the keyboard and singer able to face one part of the crowd and then continue the circle to face fans on the other side.

Joel had already sung "Prelude/Angry Young Man," This is "My Life," a 1971 item called "Everybody Loves You Now," "The Entertainer," "Allentown," and "Zanzibar" before admitting to the boomer-heavy crowd of 9,500 fans that the piano moving around its circular mini-stage was the only "special effect" he had for them. The piano man did have another trick, as it turned out.

The 1970s superstar with 33 Top 40 hits started 20 minutes late at 8:20pm. Six minutes later, Joel had his first standing ovation for "Prelude/Angry Young Man." He had enough heat late in the main set to finish with a spectacular four-song run starting with "We Didn't Start The Fire" and ending with "You May Be Right."

Last night's Joel, Joel, Joel extravaganza finally ended with Joel playing plenty of harmonica on "Piano Man," the encore finale. He turns 58 on Wednesday, something Joel mentioned to cheers.

Joel talked a lot and added little Canadian touches throughout the show. There was a flicker of "O Canada" in the piano intro to "My Life."

There was a funny, brief reprise of "The Entertainer" as it might have been sung by Gordon Lightfoot - "one of my heroes," Joel said.

He also referenced another great Canadian singer/songwriter with a little bit of "Helpless," delivered in a faux Neil Young warble from a bad, bad karaoke night.

Joel referred to the seats behind the stage and its ramps as "Windsor" and he and his fine band made sure those fans had some face time, too.

The seats at the far end of the arena were "the Yukon Territory." Joel didn't have big video screens in his own set-up for them, but in an arena first for a concert, the video images were carried on the video board in the arena's scoreboard. It is surprising no other act has tried this before.

That "special effect" worked well even if meant that, as viewed from Section 105, the "Piano Man"'s hands were often seen in huge close-up near the Jiffylube motto "Oil change in minutes."

Joel's concert last night called up memories of the show by British superstar Elton John last November, the best of 2006 in London and also a debut in this market.

I will say the American did try one effect Sir Elton didn't.

Joel's piano disappeared into the stage, the star strapped on a guitar, and out came a roadie to sing AC/DC's "Highway To Hell."

It drove the crowd crazy and energized Joel to the point he tossed around the mic stand as he strutted - sans piano - for a few songs.

He moves a bit like Kevin James in "King of Queens," but he's cool about it.

Then Joel's sleek keyboard rose to the stage surface once more and the amazing drive to "Piano Man" was on.

We'll just have to see if Sir Elton tries to top that.

"The marriage has turned into a nightmare for her - she misses her young friends, and she’s bored with Billy," says an insider.

"When she first met him, she was an innocent kid - but she"s grown up and her friends say she thinks it's time to move on."

In a revealing snub, she took off during her husband's May 9th, 2007 birthday, divulged the insider.

"Katie went out with her friends on Billy's birthday. She rarely goes on the road with him, and he's lonely."

The article goes on to say that Joel sold the sprawling $37 million mansion on Long Island that he loved because Katie said it was too big for her. They now live in a $6 million townhouse in Manhattan.

Joel was in rehab for alcoholism just five months after they were married. He spent 30 days at the Betty Ford Center.

Billy Joel, Tom Petty, Prince, Dave Matthews and James Taylor are among the musicians that will play a mega-expensive series of concerts in the Hamptons this summer called "Social." A pass for all five events will cost $15,000, or $3,000 for each show. It's being marketed to wealthy executives and socialites.