Maybe it's because I feel myself getting older faster than at any other time in my life, but I find that I'm being reeled in by so many poignant song lyrics. None more so, currently, than Billy Joel's Vienna. A song he released in 1977 (when I was just sixteen) that encapsulates life: a life to savour, a life to enjoy - if the sixty-three year old me could have torn the sixteen year old me away from the Sex Pistols long enough to listen to this then maybe he'd have learned a valuable lesson: "Slow down you're doing fine, you can't be everything you want to be before your time." Then again, since when did sixteen year olds listen to anything anybody over the age of thirty tell them?
Joel himself explains what he thinks it's all about but, once again, the version I want to play for you today is by Elle Cordova & Toni Lindgren...
Elle & Toni - Vienna (2024)
Whereas I mis-spent my youth by listening to far too much Billy Joel, unable to tear myself away to check out The Smiths...
ReplyDeleteHe passed me by, really. Until now, that is. Vienna is a near perfect song.
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