Name: Billy Joel Was Dying To Ask Bob Dylan This One Question | David Letterman
Uploaded: 2025-07-31T15:00:18.000Z
Description: Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Billy Joel Was Dying To Ask Bob Dylan This One Question | David Letterman' from Letterman on Comedy Buff. Published 2025-07-31. Transcript available.

Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Billy Joel Was Dying To Ask Bob Dylan This One Question | David Letterman' from Letterman on Comedy Buff. Published 2025-07-31. Transcript available.

Welcome back to the show. Thank you for being on the show. You've been very
nice to us, very generous, very friendly with your time over the years for us
here in New York City. And the song that you sang is a Bob Dylan song?
It's a song written by Bob Dylan, which wasn't on a Bob Dylan album. And I'm
putting out a Greatest Hits album tomorrow. And they like to have new songs for
radio to play. And I really haven't been writing rock and roll songs. I've been
writing classical music.
Classical music?
Yeah.
And why is that you have enough money?
I guess so.
Yeah. I guess I do, actually. But it's something I've always enjoyed. There are
songs I've written, actually, that are like classical music. And the President
of the Record Company said there's this great song by Bob Dylan that isn't on
an album. And I heard it. And my hair stood up on my arms.
It's a beautiful song. You must know Bob Dylan. I would guess that you guys are
friends or have certainly met each other.
I've met Bob over the years from time to time. First time I met him, he came to
visit me. His daughter, it turns out, was a fan of mine. This was back in the
early 80s.
He comes over to my apartment. I was living at the San Maritz Hotel. I had this
great apartment at San Maritz.
And introduces his daughter to me. And she's a fan. And she's asking me all
these questions.
And I'm trying to carry on a meaningful conversation with this, you know,
teenage girl. And in my kitchen is Bob Dylan, you know. And he's leaning
against my refrigerator going, hey, it's okay, you know.
It's cool.
And I thought it was, you know, he was a good dad. He was being a good dad. I
thought that was nice.
It's a nice thing for both of you to have done and a great thing for the kid as
well.
Yeah.
And did you, was there ever anything you got from him that you thought, well,
this is insight. This is unusual to our profession. I'm going to hang on to
something that he has told you or said to you.
I asked him at one time. I met him at a gig, believe it or not, in Milan, Italy.
They have these funny venues over there. They don't have hockey arenas and
basketball arenas and Madison Square Garden. They have like bicyclone-tron-thons.
Oh, like velodrome.
Velodrome, yeah. Velcro things. Very strange gigs. And you go backstage. And
Bob was backstage in Milan. And I go and he goes, hey, Billy, how you doing?
He said, what are you doing in Milan? And I said, well, I'm here to see you,
man. And I always wanted to ask him because I'm now building up a large catalog
of songs. And I start worrying if I'm going to forget words. And Bob's written
more words than there are.
Yeah, yeah.
And I said, how do you, Bob, how do you remember all these words? Oh, that's
easy. Just go over in the dressing room and take a look on the coffee table.
And this is, you sound like Bob Dylan if he had a cartoon show.
He was in a good mood that night.
Yeah.
So I look over on the coffee table and there is like a store-bought book, Bob
Dylan's The Songs of Bob Dylan.
He's got them all right there.
He's got this big book on the coffee table. And I said, well, okay, but how do
you read the lyrics on stage?
He goes, well, I really can't read them. I just feel good knowing they're there.
Casey has to run backstage and do some research on his own material.
It's like a security blanket. And I've actually started doing that. I put a
little book of lyrics on the piano.
Of course, you can't dive into them in the middle of a song.
It just makes you feel a little bit better.
There they are.
Now, talking about money, you now, in addition to everything else, are building
boats, designing boats?
What is the...
I like boats. It's my great getaway. I can go 100 yards offshore and it's like
I'm on another planet.
It really is a great way for me to get away. And I've had a couple of boats
built.
And this was a boat that I helped to design based on the old commuter boats in
the 30s and 40s.
It's a good-looking boat, isn't it?
It's a handsome boat.
That's a lovely piece of work. And is this like an old wooden boat or is this
steel?
It's actually made out of fiberglass with a Kevlar, infused Kevlar.
And it's very strong. And it looks like an old boat, but it goes about 60 miles
an hour.
So you're going along on this boat and these guys are going by and they're fast
boats and they're production boats.
And they see this old boat coming up to them and they go, ha, ha, ha.
And they put the throttle down and you just keep going ahead of them.
And then they get on the horn after a while and they go, what the hell is that
thing?
You know? And it's a shelter-island runabout.
And you have your own boat-building company?
Well, I'm the guy who owns the parts that they make the mold from, the hull and
the fiberglass cabin.
That's very impressive. And you own one of these yourself, obviously?
Yeah, but I never get to use it because my boat is the demo boat.
So they're always showing customers.
Salesmen always out in your boat.
Exactly.
And how many have you sold?
Well, it's a small production. We've sold about six boats now.
They can only knock out about six boats a year. It's a small place on Shelter
Island.
Hand-built kind of thing?
Yeah, they're really done by handcrafted, you know.
Well, that's great. I'm very, very impressed by that.
And if a person like me, not just a guy off the street,
but if a person like me wanted to buy one of these boats, how much, how bad
would I get hurt?
Well, we know you have the cake, Dave, so...
No!
I'll put in a good word for you, though.
Thank you very much.
The CD, it will be in stores tomorrow.
Greatest hits, volume, volume number three.
And this would, I guess, take you closer to 100 million in sales, wouldn't it?
Something like that?
Hopefully.
Yeah, good for you.
Thank you again, Billy.
Thank you, Dave.
Nice to see you.
Billy Joe, ladies and gentlemen.
Thank you.
Thank you.