it sang to me

When I was a teen, my musical taste ran late 70's punk, early 80's alternative. Or was we called it in the day...New Wave. Mid-80's I loved the English stuff (Guadalcanal Diary, The Housemartins, China Crisis). I was an early fan of the Athens, Georgia sound...R.E.M., Matthew Sweet (I went to high school with him), B-52s, etc.


But there was one Top 40 song that sang to my soul.

Come out, Virginia-

Don't let me wait.

You Catholic girls start much too late.

Yeah. That one.

Ah! But sooner or later it comes down to fate.

I might as well will be the one.

So much of life comes down to fate. A mistaken identity--a confusion about just which person with that last name--might lead you to someone who will change you and take something from you...something you will spend years trying to find again.

Well, they showed you a statue-

Told you to pray.

They built you a temple and locked you away.

My upbringing was not physically locked away--my parents actually trusted me more than was smart. But my religious upbringing certainly had a "locked away" feeling. There was little attempt to understand; it was all about doctrinization. So when I shoved it away, well...

But they never told you the price it would pay.

The things that you might have done...

I took part of those words to heart. But I didn't really think about the price piece of it. I figured it just meant I was missing out on something. But really, I didn't realize the price I would pay, for the things I did do, either.


Instead, I adamantly rejected what was forced on me without discussion, without allowance for interpretation, without acceptance of differences in thinking. I merely assumed the Church would keep me from doing all those things I might have done...so I blindly rejected, just as I was blindly taught
...and sought out and did all those things.

So come on Virginia!

Show me a sign-

Send up a signal;

I'll throw you a line.

I don't know, truly, that I needed a life line. My life was pretty fine. But it felt stifling. I felt very alone and unique and not understood. The way I was raised felt unintelligent and unthoughtful and robotic. And so I tried to smash that safety and rebel. But when I look back on it? I was really a fairly pathetic rebel. All in all, it was a safe rebellion. Inside, where thoughts and intention lie, it was pretty profound. But on the outside, my parents really lucked out that I'm not much of a gambler...that I'm a bit of a chicken. That I was really, really lucky in my stupidity.

The stained glass curtain you're hidin' behind-

Never lets in the sun...

Oh this stanza sang out for me. But I suppose that stained glass curtain is what actually kept me from true destruction.

You got a nice white dress and a party on your confirmation.*

You've got a brand new soul.

And a cross of gold.

But Virginia they didn't give you quite enough information.

Here my indignation at the Church rang out...at how they repressed information I felt kids needed, that I knew kids needed, to keep all those Catholic girls from having little Catholic babies. And to keep back-street butchers from the need to destroy little Catholic fetuses. Yes, this song, meant all those things to me. I came to my pro-choice beliefs right alongside this song.


*Billy Joel must not be Catholic. The white dress is First Communion, not Confirmation. But this snafu in the song never bothered me.

You didn't count on me-

When you were counting on your rosary.

I was never going to count on a prayer to bring me what I wanted. I went out and got it. Or, it got me.

(Do you know, to this day, I've never said a whole rosary on my own. I've only ever said them at pre-funeral Rosaries).

And they say there's a Heaven,

For those who will wait.

And some say it's better,

But I say it ain't!

This is what it came down to for me. I remember thinking that the words were a little shallow... that they really were wrong...but then my personal, inner New York rocker would rise up and remind me that those thoughts were just part of the window I was hiding behind.

I'd rather laugh with the sinners than cry with the saints.

The sinners are much more fun...

And my sinners were so much fun...except when they were the cause of so much pain. But if I just focused on the fun...maybe the laughing would go on forever?

Said your mother told you all that I could give you was a reputation!

Ah! She never cared for me.

But did she ever say a prayer for me?

That is precisely what seemed so wrong to me about the church of my youth. For me, this really wasn't about my mother. At that age, I had not caught on to her judgmentalism. There was prayer in our home...over meals...at bedtime. But these were rote, memorized prayers that held no meaning for me. My mother seemed a very good person to me. Her religiosity did not seem fake or overwrought. It seemed personal and rather quiet.


Instead, for me, these lyrics were about the general hypocrisy of religion. Hypocrisy is acid to a teen soul.

Only the good die young...

I'm very glad that isn't actually true. But, when you are young, the thought of missing out on anything is a real fear. And so why not try it? Why not go for it? Why not just twirl in the wind and let what happens, happen?

Only the good die young...

This song fueled my rage. It may be one of the strangest rage-makers ever. But it was my personal anthem.

It's Billy's house.


Final point: A little worried that religion might repress her (I fight with myself regularly about sending her to Catholic school), last year I played this song for Eldest. She listened and said, "Mom. These lyrics are teaching the wrong thing." I said, "Maybe. But that's why I loved them when I was your age." It's one of the first songs she and I connected over. Music is a regular link for us now. Later in her Freshman year I introduced her to the Violent Femmes. I'm nothing if not eclectic.