Songful Style Link Party #30 | “Vienna” by Billy Joel

About Songful Style

Songful Style is an ageless style challenge series hosted by Shelbee of Shelbee on the Edge, Marsha of Marsha in the Middle, and Suzy of Suzy Turner, The Grey Brunette (formerly The Grey Brunette).

Each month we will share a song with the lyrics and video and we invite you to use whatever aspect of the song that inspires you to create an outfit. 

It is similar to Style Imitating Art where we use artwork to inspire our outfit creations. Except Songful Style gives you lyrics, music, video, and album artwork to inspire your fashion creativity. You may even find inspiration in a memory triggered by the selected song. It is all open to your own personal interpretation and just a fun way to discover new music and get a little bit more creative with your wardrobe.

Anyone is welcome to join us on a permanent basis or you can just play along without any obligation to do anything other than feel inspired. We are flexible and fun and just want to find more ways to play dress up because it’s what we enjoy doing! 

We will be posting on the last Monday of each month and will announce our song choice for the following month at the end of each post. You are welcome to style your own song inspired outfit and add it to the link party or link anything that you want to share even if it has nothing to do with the song. 

It was my turn to choose the song so I dove into the soundtrack of my life for this one. “Vienna” by Billy Joel is one of the anthems from Chapters 2001-2006 of My Life in Songs.

The Lyrics

Slow down you crazy child
You're so ambitious for a juvenile
But then if you're so smart tell me
Why are you still so afraid? (mmmmm)

Where's the fire, what's the hurry about?
You better cool it off before you burn it out
You got so much to do and only
So many hours in a day (Ay)

But you know that when the truth is told
That you can get what you want
Or you can just get old
You're gonna kick off before you even get halfway through (Oooh)
When will you realize, Vienna waits for you?

Slow down you're doing fine
You can't be everything you want to be before your time
Although it's so romantic on the borderline tonight (tonight)

Too bad, but it's the life you lead
You're so ahead of yourself that you forgot what you need
Though you can see when you're wrong
You know you can't always see when you're right (you're right)

You got your passion, you got your pride
But don't you know that only fools are satisfied?
Dream on, but don't imagine they'll all come true (Oooh)
When will you realize, Vienna waits for you?

Slow down you crazy child
Take the phone off the hook and disappear for a while
It's alright, you can afford to lose a day or two (oooh)
When will you realize, Vienna waits for you?

And you know that when the truth is told
That you can get what you want or you can just get old
You're gonna kick off before you even get halfway through (oooh)
Why don't you realize, Vienna waits for you?

When will you realize, Vienna waits for you?

About the Artist

If you have been alive and listening to music at any point in the last half century then you probably know the name Billy Joel and are familiar with at least some of his songs. With a career spanning seven different decades and three musical genres, Billy Joel is regarded as one of the world’s best selling music artists of all time, selling in excess of 160 million records worldwide.

William Martin Joel was born on May 9, 1949, in the Bronx, New York, to Helmut “Howard” Joel, a classical pianist and businessman of German Jewish descent, and Rosalind Lyman Joel from Brooklyn, New York, who was of English Jewish descent.

Joel’s music career begin in his early teens when he joined The Echoes, a group known for its British Invasion cover performances. After band hopping for a few years, Billy Joel signed with Family Productions, the record company that would release his first solo album in 1971. And now, 53 years later, he is a Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee, winner of 5 Grammy Awards, and has multiple songs included on highly acclaimed Top Songs of All Time lists. He also has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for his musical contributions in film.

At the age of 75, Billy Joel continues to make music, kicking off a fall tour this September. He currently maintains residences in the New York City and Long Island areas with his fourth wife and their two daughters. Joel has one other daughter with his second wife, model Christie Brinkley.

There is an abundant amount of biographical information about Billy Joel online that you can go seek and find for yourself if you are interested in learning more.

About the Song

“Vienna” was first released as the B-side to Billy Joel’s single “Just the Way You Are” on his fifth studio album, The Stranger, released in 1977. Although it was initially a B-side release, the song has grown in popularity, especially over the decades of streaming services with over 450 million streams on Spotify alone. There doesn’t seem to have been an official music video created at the time of the song’s release. The official video shared above was produced in 2024.

The lyrics of the song were inspired by a visit to his father in Vienna when Joel was a child. His parents had divorced in 1957 and his father relocated to Austria, saying he had never liked the United States. Billy Joel has stated that “Vienna” is a metaphor for old age, but he acknowledges that the song may subconsciously also be about his father. Billy Joel has cited “Vienna” as one of his two favorite songs alongside “Summer, Highland Falls”.

In a 2008 interview, Joel summarized the song’s message, saying,

“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. I kind of used ‘Vienna’ as a metaphor, there is a reason for being old, a purpose…We treat old people in this country pretty badly. We put them in rest homes, we kinda kick them under the rug and make believe they don’t exist. They [the people in Vienna] don’t feel like that. In a lot of these older places in the world, they value their older people and their older people feel they can still be a part of the community and I thought ‘This is a terrific idea’ – that old people are useful – and that means I don’t have to worry so much about getting old because I can still have a use in this world in my old age. I thought ‘Vienna waits for you…'” (Source)

That summary really hit home for me because it is exactly how I interpreted the song lyrics back in Chapters 2001-2006 when I was trying to squeeze my whole life into my 20s and 30s in a gallant effort to make it, trying to achieve the American dream, diving into the rat race and damn near actually killing myself.

I would play this song over and over during those rat race years and the lyric that effected me most profoundly was

Slow down you crazy child
Take the phone off the hook and disappear for a while
It's alright, you can afford to lose a day or two

As it happened, one day in 2006, I took the phone off the hook to disappear for a while. I realized in 2024 that I haven’t put that phone back on the hook. And I don’t think I ever will at this point. I have slowed down my pace and am enjoying all the hours of my days, existing in the moments, and appreciating the blessings in my life with abundant gratitude. So I am thinking “Vienna” will come back around as an anthem in my life’s soundtrack for Chapter 2024.

About My Outfit

I really challenged myself with this song because there are no sartorial suggestions whatsoever in the lyrics and there is no official video from the time of the song’s original release. At first, I had considered creating an outfit that was reminiscent of my personal style circa 2001-2006 when this song was so impactful for me. But most of my wardrobe during those years was corporate attire appropriate only for the NYC rat race. As I transitioned into a slower, more peaceful existence, I weaned all of those stodgy corporate wardrobe items out of my closet.

Next I turned to the new 2024 video production for style inspiration. While it is a very artistic and visually appealing video, there isn’t much sartorial inspiration except for the silhouette of the woman’s dress and the color scheme of black and tan.

So I went digging in my closet for a dress with a similar silhouette when I came upon this thrifted shirtdress. It does not match the silhouette I was looking for at all, but it did give me all sorts of Viennese vibes with its rusty red color and tiny white leafy floral print. So I buttoned it up, added a pair of sheer ankle socks with stacked brogues, and tied a delicate brown velvet and chiffon neckerchief at my collar for a timelessly chic outfit. What I ended up with was an outfit that did fairly accurately represent how I dressed in the early 2000s.

But I needed a hat because hats complete every outfit.

I decided my hat should represent Vienna in some way so I did a little research on Viennese hats and discovered Tyrolean hats. This style of headwear originated from Tyrol in the Alps which is now part of Austria. They are typically made of green felt and feature a crown that tapers to a point with a brim that is roughly the width of an adult human hand.

I do not have a Tyrolean hat, but a fedora is very similar in shape and size without the tapered point. So I chose my white fedora and added a green scarf as a hat band to recognize the traditional green color of the felt used in the construction of Tyrolean hats.

In addition to their distinctive shape and size, Tyrolean hats also are characteristically decorated with elaborate sprays of flowers, feathers, or “brush”. So I grabbed a little plume of greenery from a fresh flower bouquet in my dining room and tucked into right into my green hat band for some pretty Venetian plumage on my head! Finally, I added an olive green chenille and lace wrap to pull all the different colors together into a more cohesive look. The flowy green ruana also keeps the outfit looking much more like Shelbee-2024 than Shelbee-2001.

I finished my outfit with a long bohemian heart pendant and my world map necklace, a pair of brushed gold earrings, and my green Teddy Blake bag.

As it turns out, this was really fun despite being incredibly challenging and I love the unexpected outfit combination that resulted from a little creative thinking!

How did I do with this musical style challenge?

I do hope you will check out how Suzy Turner, The Grey Brunette interpreted this song into style. Marsha in the Middle will not be joining us this month because she is currently vacationing in Europe…maybe even Vienna???

Featured Favorite from Songful Style Link Party #29 | “Burning House” by Cam

La Moumous

Be sure to stop back on September 30, 2024, to see how we find sartorial inspiration from Suzy’s next song choice…“These Dreams” by Heart.

Keeping it on the edge, 

Shelbee

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