Sixteen Going on Seventeen
| "Sixteen Going on Seventeen" | |
|---|---|
| Song from The Sound of Music | |
| Published | 1959 |
| Writer(s) | Oscar Hammerstein II |
| Composer(s) | Richard Rodgers |
"Sixteen Going on Seventeen" is a show tune from the 1959 Rodgers and Hammerstein musical The Sound of Music.
The lyrics of the song state that Liesl is a young girl at the beginning of her womanhood, and that she can depend on Rolf for guidance, because he is a good year older. Since the comparative maturity of the two characters in the story is the opposite of that expressed in the song, this is an example of lyrical irony.
A reprise of "Sixteen Going on Seventeen" is also sung by Maria and Liesl when the Captain and Maria came back from their honeymoon and Rolf has rejected Liesl. The introduction for the reprise, written to be sung by Maria, was not included in the film version of The Sound of Music, but continue to be used in theatrical versions of the musical.
"A bell is no bell 'til you ring it,
A song is no song 'til you sing it,
And love in your heart
Wasn’t put there to stay -
Love isn’t love
'Til you give it away."
Songwriters Don Roth and Timmy Tappan borrowed heavily from Hammerstein's introduction to the reprise in "Love Isn't Love ('Til You Give It Away)", which was a song covered by Reba McEntire on her Behind the Scene album:
"A smile's not a smile until it wrinkles your face
A bell's not a bell without ringing
A home's not a home when there's nobody there
A song's not a song without singing.
"Love isn't love till you give it away
Love isn't love till it's free
The love in your heart
Wasn't put there to stay
Oh love isn't love till you give it away."
In the motion picture version, the song was filmed in and around a gazebo which is still visited by hundreds of tourists each day doing "Sound of Music" tours around Salzburg though the gazebo interiors were filmed in Hollywood.
State Farm Insurance released an ad campaign featuring a remix of the show tune as a rock song. It was produced by the audio production firm Modern Music.
This song was used twice on Family Guy. The song is heard in the episode "Family Gay" and Lois sings the song to her daughter Meg in the episode "Peter's Two Dads," trying to guess how old she is.
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