The Bittersweet Soundtrack of a City That Never Stays the Same
New York City has always been a character in its own right—a living, breathing entity that swallows people whole and spits them out transformed. But what happens when the city itself becomes unrecognizable, even to those who’ve called it home for decades? Sharon Van Etten’s Seventeen isn’t just a song about nostalgia; it’s a raw meditation on the quiet violence of urban change and the existential whiplash of watching the places you loved vanish like smoke. Personally, I think this track should be required listening for anyone who’s ever romanticized the idea of “making it” in New York. It’s a gut-punch reminder that the city’s magic lies not in its skyline, but in the fragile, fleeting communities that flicker and die beneath it.
Why Do We Mourn a City That’s Still Standing?
Here’s the paradox: New York isn’t dying. It’s evolving, as cities do. But Van Etten captures something Joan Didion hinted at in Goodbye to All That—the ache of realizing that the “romantic notion” of New York was always a mirage, one that dissolves the longer you stare. When she sings, “I used to be free / I used to be 17,” she’s not lamenting youth so much as the death of illusion. The stores, subway stops, and dive bars we cling to aren’t just bricks and mortar. They’re anchors for our memories. Lose them, and suddenly you’re untethered in a place that still calls itself “home.”
What many people don’t realize is that this isn’t unique to NYC. Every major city is a palimpsest of lost worlds. But New York’s breakneck pace of reinvention makes the grief sharper. A bodega becomes a crypto lounge; a punk venue gets bulldozed for luxury condos. These aren’t upgrades—they’re erasures. And yet, as Van Etten’s music video makes clear, there’s beauty in the decay. The Marcy Street JM Subway Stop isn’t just rust and graffiti; it’s a monument to a thousand private stories.
The Dangerous Myth of the “Timeless” City
Let’s unpack the lie we tell ourselves: that cities like New York exist to “inspire” artists. Rubbish. They chew up idealism and spit out cynicism. Van Etten’s genius is in rejecting the rose-tinted retrospectives of songs like Empire State of Mind. Her New York isn’t glittering; it’s grungy, gnarled, and heartbreaking. The music video’s “virtual tour” of Union Pool and Baby’s All Right isn’t a celebration—it’s an autopsy. These spaces nurtured her, yes, but they’re also relics now. If you take a step back and think about it, every generation gets its own version of the city, and every generation insists theirs was the “real” one. That’s the joke.
What Does It Mean to “Belong” in a Place That Won’t Stay Still?
Here’s where the song transcends geography. Seventeen is ultimately about the human condition—the way we cling to identities, relationships, even versions of ourselves that time insists on discarding. Moving to a city “bright-eyed,” as Van Etten puts it, means learning to mourn in real time. That laundromat closing down? It’s not just a business. It’s Mrs. Kim’s second home, the corner where you met your ex, the spot where you smoked your first cigarette after quitting. When developers roll in, they aren’t just altering skylines; they’re redrawing the map of your soul.
The Future of Forgetting
What’s next? A metaverse NYC where holograms of Lou Reed haunt virtual Central Park? Maybe. But the deeper question Van Etten raises is whether we’re complicit in this cycle. Do we fetishize “authenticity” while demanding our neighborhoods become safer, cleaner, more “efficient”? I’ll admit—I’ve cursed the gentrification of Brooklyn while sipping overpriced matcha in a café that replaced a tire shop. Hypocrisy is the price of survival in a changing city.
If there’s solace, it’s in Joni Mitchell’s line Van Etten invokes: “Something’s lost, but something’s gained in living every day.” The trick, I suppose, is learning to hold both truths—the impermanence of the city and the impermanence of our sorrow. Seventeen fades, but the song remains. And maybe that’s enough.
