In 2019, Sharon Van Etten bestowed the headphones of the world with the beauty of “Seventeen.” Months later, Norah Jones joined the recording, voices blending in artful agony. And in the summer of 2025, in melodramatic pursuit of meaning and myself, the song became the backdrop to my own seventeenth year in all its confusing glory.
My journey to this song was non-linear. The original recording existed in a pockmarked corner of my memory, played on the radio when I was around twelve and age meant little to me. On the eve of my 17th birthday, I received the birthday text, “There’s so much music about 17-year-olds did you know?” The following morning I queued a playlist, songs about being seventeen, but seconds in I realized I felt unready to absorb the tracks. Lingering in the comfort of sixteen, I had not yet experienced the themes they spoke of.
So, meta music aside, I went about all my usual listening antics. I repeated “Alibi” by Hurray for the Riff Raff to the point of internalizing its opening riff, developed a messy relationship with the scratchy voices of Pinegrove – and midwestern indie sleaze as a genre – and reverted to old favorites like Big Brother & The Holding Company. “Seventeen” arrived when I needed it most. In Gambier, Ohio.
In the village, home to the Kenyon Review Young Writers Workshop I attended, principles of introspection were law. Workshop felt inherently supportive, but filling pages with prose that truly tugged at peers’ heartstrings meant looking inward. To the places that raised me, aspects of my identity, my memories and so on. I struggled with this at first, prioritizing elegant syntax over raw narrative intuition.
Attending an open mic activity in the infamous Horn Gallery diluted my reservations. There, within the collaged walls that immortalized music gigs and open mics past, I listened to a peer detail her coming-of-age through the lens of a Paul Simon song she loved in childhood. Inspired, new friends and I hummed its tune: a duet with the singing cicadas of the night we dispersed into. We spoke of returning to the Horn soon.
More than returning, we ended up spending much of the next two weeks trading music and poetry recs there. “Seventeen” came with a warning. “Listen when you feel like you need it.”
A Wall at The Horn Gallery (Source: Saskia Sommer)
A few nights later, just before my piece for the program-wide anthology was due, I needed it. Looking for last-ditch creative inspiration, I metaphorically fired up the track and literally went to church. I sat in the campus chapel’s first pew. Journal at hand, the song’s proverbial first line, “I know what you wanna say,” propelled my pen forward. Van Etten and Jones quickly turned prophetic, singing, “You think you know something you don’t” and “I wish you could see how much you’ve grown.”
It seemed as though these lyrics were in direct dialogue with my thoughts. As the song continued, I realized this was intentional. Van Etten and Jones combined creative forces to produce an empathetic, rational message to the seventeen-year-olds of the world. The two impart that the simple fact of being seventeen is at all times the most grandiose and low stakes challenge of the notorious age. Everything is serious but also not at all.
My notebook page now a mix of abstract prose and lyrical interpretation, Van Etten and Jones called me out as “constantly being led astray,” taunted me with “think you’re so carefree” and ultimately grounded me in reality: “you’re just 17, so much like me.”
By the end of my first listen, I felt demoralized, incredibly seen and satisfied with my semi-composed draft. Upon a second listen, I really started to resonate with the lyrics. Not the scarily accurate ones, but the verses that consisted merely of “la la la la la la la”: the real stuff of seventeen.
Acting on the impulse to create unusual prompts – one Kenyon instilled in me – I composed a question to ground my writing. What is the “la la la la la la la la” in my own experience of seventeen?
The Church at Kenyon College (Source: Saskia Sommer)
The following is my testimony. Waking up at 5AM to watch the sunrise and ride the ferry with a friend who leaves for college the next day… then heading to work to research state legislation. Knowing it all. Knowing nothing. Walking the whole of Manhattan. Headphones reverberating with what Spotify calls a “Cool Dad Rock Mix.” Laughing with friends over dinner. Table shaking ever-so-slightly as a result. Ravenously consuming feisty op-eds and literary commentary. Subscribing to Patti Smith’s substack.
Photobooth videos in waves of preemptive nostalgia. Experimenting with Super8 and 16 mm film. Finally developing expired film. Getting recommended Friedrich Nietzsche’s “Thus Spoke Zarathustra.” Thinking I understand the camel, the lion and the child within. Realizing I most definitely do not. Missing my childhood and re-reading old cursive-adjacent writing. Writing new letters.
Going to the movie theaters alone. Specifically, seeing the age-old love story “Before Sunrise” in a theater of couples. Having a running phase. Wondering how to run for president. Stumbling into the MET to find the work of John Singer Sargent. Psychic readings and cosmic consciousness in the board game Leela. College supplements and lots of them. Feeling tethered to the future. Feeling tethered to the past. Learning through it all.
A few listens later, using this list as a source of inspiration, I was ready to submit to the anthology, to embrace the ages that lie ahead and to take on the world. But, in that exact moment, my favorite song delivered a humbling reminder: “You’re just 17, you’re just 17.”
