The Bittersweet Soundtrack of a City That Never Stays the Same
New York City isn’t a place—it’s a living, breathing entity that sheds its skin every decade. One day you’re walking past a bodega that’s been there since the ’80s, and the next, it’s a neon-lit crypto lounge with a waitlist longer than a Tolstoy novel. This is the pulse that Sharon Van Etten captures in Seventeen, a song that feels less like a nostalgic trip and more like a conversation with the city itself about what it means to outlive your own memories.
The Illusion of Permanence—and Why It Haunts Us
Here’s the thing about cities: they make you believe they’ll always be there, exactly as you found them. But Van Etten, a self-proclaimed “adopted New Yorker” with roots in New Jersey and Tennessee, knows better. Seventeen isn’t just about watching Manhattan’s skyline morph into a sci-fi movie set—it’s about the quiet horror of realizing that the places you built your identity around vanish while you’re busy growing older. That bodega wasn’t just a bodega; it was the backdrop to your first heartbreak, your midnight coffee runs, your unspoken pact with the guy behind the counter who remembered your order. When Van Etten sings, “I used to be free / I used to be 17,” she’s not romanticizing youth. She’s mourning the death of a version of herself that only existed because the city let her.
What makes this particularly fascinating is how Van Etten flips the script on the classic “city song.” Most artists wax poetic about New York’s glittering chaos, but she’s more interested in the cracks between the bricks. This isn’t a eulogy for the city—it’s a confession that we’re all complicit in its transformation. We move there with stars in our eyes, complain when our favorite dive bars turn into condos, then realize we’ve become the elders griping about “the good old days.” It’s a cycle as old as the subway system, and Van Etten nails it with the precision of someone who’s lived in both the dream and the hangover.
Mourning Without Melancholy: The Art of Letting Go
Let’s get one thing straight: Seventeen isn’t wallowing in sadness. It’s smarter than that. The song’s power lies in its refusal to choose between grief and gratitude. When Van Etten wanders past Union Pool and Baby’s All Right in the music video, she’s not just filming locations—she’s excavating layers of personal history. That JMZ subway stop isn’t a commute; it’s the place where she scribbled lyrics on a napkin at 2 a.m., half-caffeinated and half-insane. The video’s director, Maureen Towey, calls it a “tender and tough” love letter, which feels exactly right. New York doesn’t ask you to love it unconditionally; it demands that you evolve alongside it.
This raises a deeper question: Why do we cling to the idea of “authentic” spaces in the first place? Maybe it’s because cities like New York are mirrors. When a laundromat becomes a luxury gym, we don’t just lose a place to wash our clothes—we lose a reflection of who we were when we could afford $2 detergent. Van Etten gets this. Her song isn’t about the death of New York; it’s about the death of the person you were when you first fell for it. And yet, there’s no bitterness. Just the quiet acceptance that Dylan hinted at in To Ramona: “Everything passes, everything changes.” But let’s be honest—knowing that doesn’t make it hurt any less.
Art as Urban Archaeology
What I find especially interesting is how Van Etten turns her music into a form of time travel. The Seventeen video isn’t just a tour of hipster landmarks; it’s urban archaeology in real time. By documenting spaces that might not exist in five years, she’s creating a fossil of the city’s fleeting soul. This isn’t just art—it’s an act of resistance against the amnesia of gentrification. Every frame screams, “This mattered. This existed.” And isn’t that what all artists crave? To leave a mark before the next coat of paint covers it up?
From my perspective, this is where Van Etten transcends the “New York song” genre. She’s not competing with Sinatra or Jay-Z; she’s joining a lineage of storytellers like Joan Didion, who saw cities as “the perishable dream itself.” But where Didion’s essay mourned the loss of youth, Van Etten adds a twist: the dream isn’t dead—it’s just different now. And maybe, just maybe, that’s okay. The music video’s closing shot—a lingering look at the Marcy Street subway stairs—feels like a dare. A reminder that the city will keep changing, with or without you. So either keep up, or become part of its history.
The Paradox of Progress
Let’s zoom out for a second. Seventeen isn’t just about New York. It’s about the universal ache of watching the world shift beneath your feet. Climate change, TikTok trends, the death of physical media—it’s all part of the same story. We’re all “17” in some way, clinging to versions of ourselves or our cultures that no longer fit. What Van Etten offers isn’t answers; it’s permission to feel both the loss and the liberation. Because here’s the secret no one tells you: when a city changes, it’s not just erasing the past. It’s making room for the next chapter. And if you’re lucky? You get to write yours before the lights dim again.
