

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. We put them in rest homes, we kinda kick them under the rug and make believe they don’t exist. He also said: "We treat old people in this country pretty badly. I kind of used 'Vienna' as a metaphor, there is a reason for being old, a purpose". Speaking more broadly about the song's message, he said in a 2008 interview that it conveys "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. Joel has stated that Vienna is a metaphor for old age, but also may have been subconsciously about his father.

Lyrically, Joel was inspired by visiting the city of Vienna and his father, who left the family when Joel was a child. Gb is the tritone substitution of the V chord for F, and F to Bb forms another authentic cadence. The end of the chorus cadences back to the tonic of Bb with the chords C, Gb, F, Bb. The chorus begins with an Eb chord, the IV chord in Bb, which is a half step up from D, giving a rising feeling going from the verse to the chorus. A change to the vi chord doesn't always indicate a change in key, but each verse ends with a V-i authentic cadence in Gm, indicating that a key change has taken place. However, when the verse starts the first chord is a Gm, which is the relative minor chord of Bb. The song begins with a piano melody in the right hand and chords in the left, ultimately cadencing to the tonic chord of Bb.

As of 2022, it is one of Joel's most-streamed songs on Spotify. Vienna is a song from Billy Joel's 1977 album The Stranger, released as the B-side to his " Just the Way You Are" single.ĭespite its initial release as a B-side, the song's popularity has grown considerably in the decades after its release.
