When Billy Joel released his fifth studio album, “The Stranger,” in 1977, the song “Vienna” flew mostly under the radar.
It wasn’t one of the four singles released in North America, merely a B-side to the hit “Just the Way You Are.” As the album catapulted Joel to critical and commercial success, “Vienna” seemed destined to remain a deep cut from his discography.
But over the years, the bluesy number endeared itself to listeners to become a cult favorite — it’s now among Joel’s top three streamed songs on Spotify alongside “Uptown Girl” and “Piano Man,” and an official music video was just released this past April.
The force behind the song’s slow-burn resurgence appears to be, at least in part, teenage girls and women in their 20s and 30s.
Across social media, young women wax poetic about the decades-old track and their emotional attachment to it. “No one understands a woman in her 20s the way billy joel did in 1977 when he wrote Vienna,” one woman declared on TikTok. Another shared that the song inspired her to embark on a solo adventure to the Austrian capital. More than a few have gotten the song’s lyrics and other “Vienna”-inspired imagery tattooed on their bodies.
Per one meme, “girlhood is sobbing to Vienna.”
Despite the fact that it was written nearly 50 years ago, “Vienna” is resonant and relevant as ever for a generation of young women. Joel (who counts the track among his favorites) has theorized that the song’s appeal to young women stems from its appearance in a pivotal scene in the 2004 rom-com “13 Going on 30.” The film, starring Jennifer Garner, tells the story of a disillusioned teenager who wants nothing more than to fast forward to adulthood — only to realize that it’s not all it’s cracked up to be.
“That’s a movie that was popular with girls, and girls are who most of the enthusiasm for the song comes from. Beyond that, I’m not sure,” he said in a 2018 interview with Vulture. “It’s a coming-of-age song: ‘Slow down you crazy child.’ So I guess it resonates with younger people. It’s a fun one to play.”
“Vienna” is written from the perspective of someone older and wiser urging a young and ambitious dreamer to go easier on themselves. (“Slow down, you’re doing fine / You can’t be everything you wanna be before your time.”) It’s a rejection of the rat race — a soothing reminder that life is long and it’s okay to not have it all figured out.
“We live in a society that’s obsessed with fast paced living and ‘grind culture’. How much can you do and how fast can you do it?” Shauna Murphy, a 22-year-old in Dublin, wrote in a message to CNN. “As young women, we put so much pressure on ourselves to perform so many roles in such a short timeframe that hearing Vienna play instantly reminds us that sometimes it’s okay to slow down and take a breath. We’re gonna be okay in the end.”
Mirelle Ortega, a 34-year-old writer and illustrator in Los Angeles, recalled being stopped in her tracks when she first heard the song during a summer home from college. At the time, she was anxious about her future, and the lyrics were exactly what she needed to hear.
“I don’t know why but our late teens and early 20’s tend to feel like the end of the world sometimes. We all feel a huge pressure to have it all figured out and there’s this feeling that whatever path you pick will make or break you,” she wrote in an email. “I think ‘Vienna’ perfectly articulates that that’s not true.”
“Vienna,” as the song’s hook goes, “waits for you.”
Joel’s use of Vienna as a metaphor for the rest of one’s life stems from an encounter in the city with his father. As the singer-songwriter has explained during performances and interviews, his parents separated when he was a child, and he was estranged from his father until the two reconnected in Vienna in his 20s. During that trip, a conversation they had made a lasting impression on him.
“We were walking in the city and I remember seeing an old lady sweeping the street and I said ‘Dad it’s kind of sad that that poor old woman has to do that kind of work.’ He said, ‘No, she has a job, she feels useful, she has a place in our society,’” Joel explained in a 2008 interview with The Republican newspaper.
“I realized they don’t throw old people away like we tend to do here in the States,” he continued. “They allow for people who are aged to have a useful place in the scheme of things and I thought y’know that’s a good metaphor for someone my age to consider. You don’t have to squeeze your whole life into your 20s and 30s trying to make it, trying to achieve that American dream, getting in the rat race and killing yourself. You have a whole life to live.”