What’s With Seventeen?

This past Saturday I had a moment post-soccer game to float blissfully in my pool, so I grabbed it, loaded up the SPF 50 and hit the raft with my Spotify Liked Songs, which happen to be eclectic AF. About 30 minutes into my vitamin D haze, I realized that there was, in fact, a common thread weaving its way throughout this list—multiple songs across different genres and several decades referenced the age seventeen.

“Like strawberry wine and seventeen, the hot July moon saw everything”

“Downtown hot spots, halfway up the street, I used to be free, I used to be seventeen”

“When I think about you, I think about seventeen”

I mean, what is with these songwriters and seventeen?

For me, it was quite a pivotal year. As a November baby, I was always the young’un in my grade, which meant I was 17 when I started college. Heyo!!!!

I was one foot out of innocence but not quite an adult, and in college to boot. It’s a heck of a combo that comes with a heck of a lot of stories + a big thank you to God that social media did not yet exist.

My bestie Lisa and I used to say, “I’m seventeen,” when we wanted to thwart unwanted advances from older college boys. We thought it was freaking hilarious to watch their faces drain of color post-declaration.

Come to think of it, though, we also used “I’m seventeen” on the boys whose advances we did welcome, as it made us—the forbidden fruit—even more appealing to them. I cannot recall how we presented it differently between the two groups, but I do remember it was an awesomely handy tool while it lasted.

Seventeen simply gives us so damn much to work with. You’re old enough for independence and experimentation—sexy time, cars, a little Zima and cloves (do those still exist?), perhaps a first serious love inevitably followed by your first serious heartbreak—and yet you’re not an adult.

I can see now how this stunning juxtaposition at this singular point in life can become serious catnip for the songwriter. The age delivers innocence and recklessness at the same time. And that’s just yummy.

With this revelation, I simply had to know just how many songs reference seventeen. So I straddled my raft and made an awkward two-legged, one-handed* beeline to my phone at the edge of the pool, where I consulted with my boyfriend Chat.

Lo and behold. Seventeen is mind-blowingly everywhere. And country music may be the worst offender. Heck, Taylor Swift alone has at least four songs referencing the age.

What I found most interesting, though, was how incredibly universal the nostalgia for seventeen seems to be. It is generation-blind, genre-blind, demographic-blind—it appears to know no social constraints. (Our jackasses in Washington should take note. Seventeen may be the last thing we can all agree on.)

We’ve got The Beatles, The Supremes, Sex Pistols, ABBA, Meat Loaf, Chris LeDoux, Joan Jett, Stevie Nicks, Rick James, Stray Cats, Green Day, Tim McGraw, Winger, Kings of Leon, Pink Sweat$ and The 1975 all singing about this beloved age.

In some songs, we’re seventeen again and living life through a lens of grand experimentation, while in others, we’re waxing nostalgic about a time of freedom, fun and young love.

I totally get it now. I can jump back into seventeen with a stronger, more visceral feeling than I can with almost any other year of my life. And every time I hear Sharon Van Etten croon, “I used to be free, I used to be seventeen,” I get a little pang in my heart. I crossed over into adulthood many moons ago and with it came all the shackles of grown-up life.

That must be why we keep singing about seventeen.

We need it. We know we can’t go back. And thank fucking God for that. I’m not sure the world, those college boys or my liver could handle another go-around.

But floating there in my pool at 48, SPF 50 slathered all over my body, one hand held awkwardly above water and absolutely nowhere I needed to be for the next few minutes, Sharon took me back there anyway.

I used to be seventeen.

For the length of a song, I still can be.