There are songs you love because they remind you of a particular time in your life, and then there are songs that seem to follow you for decades, quietly changing meaning as you change. For me, Billy Joel’s “Vienna” has always been one of those songs.

I was in seventh grade in 1977 when The Stranger came out. I didn’t own the album. I borrowed it from the Brooklyn Public Library, and then I borrowed it again. And again. I must have checked that record out at least a dozen times. I sometimes wonder if the library eventually had to buy another copy because one kid in Brooklyn kept taking the same one home.

The album was packed with songs that would become classics, but “Vienna” was the one that held me. It was slower than most of the record, with that accordion giving it a sound I couldn’t quite place. There was something almost old-fashioned about it, something foreign and distant. I had never been to Vienna. I knew almost nothing about Austria. I was 12 years old and certainly had no understanding of what the song was saying about aging, ambition, patience, or the strange urge we have to hurry through our own lives.

Still, the song spoke to me.

I think there are times when we hear something long before we understand why we need to hear it. We store it somewhere without knowing what to do with it, and then life slowly catches up.

Billy Joel has explained that the song grew out of a trip to Austria to visit his father. While there, he saw an older woman sweeping the street and initially felt sorry for her. His father explained that Joel was looking at her through a distinctly American lens. She wasn’t being discarded or forced to keep working past her usefulness. She still had a role. She contributed to her community. She belonged.

That idea stayed with him, along with the contrast between a culture obsessed with youth and one where growing older didn’t automatically mean becoming invisible.

Suddenly, Vienna wasn’t only a city. Vienna became the place waiting at the other end of youth.

That changes the song completely.

“Vienna” speaks to someone who is in a terrible hurry to become something. There are achievements to collect, goals to reach, things to prove. Life feels like a race, and somewhere in the distance is the frightening possibility of getting old before everything has been accomplished.

Joel’s answer is wonderfully gentle. Slow down. You have time.

I didn’t understand any of that in seventh grade. At 12, old age might as well have been another country. Fifty seemed ancient. Sixty was nearly unimaginable. The idea that there might be something good waiting on the other side of youth would have meant almost nothing to me.

Now it means quite a lot.

We spend so much of our lives rushing toward the next version of ourselves. As children, we want to be teenagers. As teenagers, we want independence. Then come careers, relationships, houses, promotions, money, recognition, security and whatever achievement we’ve decided will finally allow us to relax.

Except the finish line keeps moving.

At the same time, our culture begins warning us about aging almost as soon as aging becomes visible. Hide the gray. Fix the wrinkle. Keep up. Stay relevant. Stay young. Whatever you do, don’t look as though you have been on this earth long enough to acquire some history.

And there was Billy Joel, back in 1977, suggesting that perhaps we had the whole thing backward.

Perhaps getting older wasn’t something to outrun.

Perhaps Vienna was waiting.

That idea feels especially personal to me now because next year I’m finally going there.

In December 2027, I’ll be traveling the Danube with a group of friends for the Christmas markets (come join us!). We’ll begin in Nuremberg and make our way through Regensburg, Passau and Melk before arriving in Vienna.

Next year will also mark 50 years since The Stranger was released and 50 years since I first brought that library album home.

There is something almost absurdly perfect about the timing.

That seventh grader in Brooklyn had no idea where his life would lead. He didn’t know who he would become, where he would live, what work he would do, whom he would love, whom he would lose, or how many places he would eventually see. He certainly didn’t know that almost half a century later he would be traveling down the Danube toward the city from that strange little song he kept playing over and over.

There was an entire life waiting between Brooklyn and Vienna.

Perhaps that is what moves me most now. When I first heard the song, Vienna represented somewhere distant and mysterious. Today, it represents time itself. All those years I once thought were so far away arrived, and rather than finding some bleak ending waiting for me, I find myself still planning trips, meeting people, starting things, changing my mind, making plans and wondering what comes next.

The song didn’t tell me to fear this part.

It told me to take my time getting here.

And now, almost 50 years later, I finally understand.

Vienna waited for me.