CNN
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When Billy Joel released his fifth studio album, “The Stranger,” in 1977, the song “Vienna” went almost unnoticed.
It was not one of the four singles released in North America, but simply a B-side to the hit “Just the Way You Are.” While the album catapulted Joel to critical and commercial success, “Vienna” seemed destined to remain a significant piece in his discography.
But over the years, the bluesy track has endeared itself to listeners to the point of becoming a cult favorite: it’s now one of Joel’s top three most-streamed songs on Spotify, alongside “Uptown Girl” and “Piano Man,” and an official music video was just released last April.
The force behind the song’s slow revival appears to be, at least in part, teenage girls and women in their 20s and 30s.
On social media, young women are gushing over the decades-old song and their emotional attachment to it. “No one understands a 20-year-old woman like Billy Joel did in 1977 when he wrote Vienna,” one woman said on TikTok. Another shared that the song inspired her to embark on a solo adventure in the Austrian capital. More than one woman has gotten the song’s lyrics and other “Vienna”-inspired imagery tattooed on their bodies.
According to a meme, “childhood is crying in Vienna.”
Although it was written nearly 50 years ago, “Vienna” still resonates and is relevant to a generation of young women. Joel (who counts the song among his favorites) speculated that the song’s appeal to young women stems from its appearance in a key scene in the 2004 romantic comedy “13 Going on 30.” The film, starring Jennifer Garner, tells the story of a disillusioned teenager who wants nothing more than to quickly transition into adulthood, only to realize that it’s not as great as it seems.
“It’s a movie that was a hit with girls, and the excitement for the song comes from girls. Beyond that, I’m not sure,” he said in a 2018 interview with Vulture. “It’s a coming-of-age song: ‘Slow Down, Little Fool.’ So I guess it resonates with younger people. It’s a fun song to play.”
“Vienna” is written from the perspective of an older, wiser person urging an ambitious young dreamer to pace himself (“Slow down, you’re doing well / You can’t be everything you want to be before your time.”) It’s a rejection of the rat race—a soothing reminder that life is long and it’s okay not to have it all figured out.
“We live in a society obsessed with fast-paced lifestyles and a culture of grind. What can you do and how fast can you do it?” Shauna Murphy, a 22-year-old from Dublin, wrote in a message to CNN. “As young women, we put so much pressure on ourselves to play so many roles in such a short space of time that hearing Vienna perform is an instant reminder that sometimes it’s good to slow down and breathe. We’ll get through this.”
Mirelle Ortega, a 34-year-old writer and illustrator from Los Angeles, remembers being stopped in her tracks when she first heard the song while she was home on vacation. At the time, she was worried about her future, and the lyrics were exactly what she needed to hear.
“I don’t know why, but our late teens and early twenties sometimes tend to feel like the end of the world. We all feel an immense pressure to figure it all out and feel that whatever path we choose will either advance us or destroy us,” she wrote in an email. “I think ‘Vienna’ perfectly expresses that this isn’t true.”
“Vienna,” as the song’s chorus says, “is waiting for you.”
Joel’s use of Vienna as a metaphor for the rest of his life stems from an encounter with his father in the city. As the singer-songwriter has explained in concerts and interviews, his parents separated when he was a child and he grew distant from his father until they reunited in Vienna in his twenties. During that trip, a conversation they had left a lasting impression on him.
“We were walking through town and I remember seeing an old lady sweeping the street. I said, ‘Dad, it’s kind of sad that this poor old woman has to do this kind of work.’ He said, ‘No, she has a job, she feels useful, she belongs in our society,’” Joel explained in a 2008 interview with The Republican.
“I realized they’re not throwing old people away like we tend to do here in the United States,” he continued. “They’re allowing old people to have a useful place in the system of things, and I thought that was a good metaphor for someone my age to think about. You don’t have to condense your whole life into your 20s and 30s and try to be successful, try to achieve that American dream, and jump into the rat race and kill yourself. You have a whole life to live.”
