young, dumb, & twenty-ish

Have you ever listened to a song and thought, “wow, I can relate to every single line of this”? Obviously, songwriting comes from a place somewhere within yourself. If you’ve ever tried it, you know it’s not as easy as it seems. Songwriters have to feel such intense emotion when they’re composing their work, and my favorite songs, probably yours too, aren’t my favorite because of the person behind it or the beat or the crazy musical components, they’re my favorite because I can feel the emotion radiating from the artist. Whether it’s an intense feeling of love or heartache or loss or excitement or disappointment, you can genuinely tell when a song comes from a deeper place within the writer, and it gives you, as the audience, a feeling of relativity. Artists search within themselves for the pain they felt during a heartbreak, for example, and you listen to it and think, “hey! I’ve felt that way before! This song is good!”

The one song that comes to mind when I think about all of these feelings of intensity coming from artists and relativity to the audience and all that jazz is “Vienna” by Billy Joel. When Billy Joel was about 8 years old, his father walked out on him and his family. When he was older, Billy actually tracked down his father and flew out to Vienna, Austria to visit him, and the song radiates around the advice his father gave him. One night when they were walking down the streets of Vienna, they saw an elderly woman sitting by herself on the side of the road and when Billy asked his father about it, he apparently replied with “she still feels useful.” Billy then concluded that he wouldn’t have to worry about getting old, because Vienna waits for him.

Ethan Dupras, a journalism student at the University of Utah stated that he interpreted the lyrics of the song as so: “The rest of your life is out there, but don’t worry because it’s not going anywhere.” I think that is so amazing.

When I listen to the lyrics of the song, it literally overwhelms me with emotion. To a listener who doesn’t know the backstory of Billy’s father, when you listen to it, it can be taken in many different ways, but it almost sounds like Billy Joel is talking to you himself. Crazy, right?

I think everyone who knows me well knows that I am obsessed with the glamour of New York City. From the very first moment I stepped foot in Manhattan, I knew it was where I belonged, and ever since then, I have to remind myself to stay focused on my goal of getting there and I always feel like I have to push myself so hard all the time because I tell myself “you won’t get to New York doing this.” Sometimes I feel like it’s hard to explain to someone who isn’t inside my head, but I suppose I relate to the song so much because I put so much pressure on myself. I always feel like I’m in such a rush.

New York waits for you.

The song genuinely reminds me to slow down– appreciate the now. I’m young, I’m in high school, and once it’s gone, I will never get this back. It’s kind of cheesy and everybody uses this quote but as Andy Bernard once said on The Office, “I wish there was a way to know you’re in ‘the good old days’ before you’ve actually left them.”

These are the good old days.

I’m putting all of this pressure on myself, and for what? The city will still be there when I’m ready. Not only will it still be there, it waits for me.

Slow down.

I highly recommend you taking a listen to the song. I’m going to copy and paste the lyrics below, and I really think you’ll be inspired if you read along with the song.

– mal