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After a long year-and-a-half here in New York City, we've been through a lot and re-learned just how resilient we are. And with a light at the end of the lengthy tunnel, one group is celebrating the iconic city through song.
NYC Next, a volunteer organization encouraging the city's recovery and aiming to drive civic engagement, just put out a beautifully produced cover of Billy Joel's "New York State of Mind" by more than a dozen NYC actors, singers, musicians, and late-night hosts.
If you're worried that the music video is as cheesy as the time celebrities did a cover of John Lennon's "Imagine," you can put those fears aside. The video is actually quite beautiful and uplifting as it features our iconic places with familiar faces coming together to sing an ode to our home.
The video, which is on Youtube (and embedded below), features Zeshan B., Sara Bareilles, Mario Cantone, Victoria Clark, Cautious Clay, Andy Cohen, Stephen Colbert, Jerry Dixon, Chloe Flower, Billy Joel’s daughter and singer-songwriter Alexa Ray Joel, Joseph Joubert, Tom Kitt, The Klezmatics, The Yankees, LaChanze, Idina Menzel, Brian Stokes Mitchell, Brian Newman, Kelli O’Hara, Joan Osborne, Peppermint, Angie Pontani, Anaïs Reno, Mark Rivera, David Rosenthal, Bobby Sanabria, Ben Stiller and Suzanne Vega.
It was filmed across the boroughs at places like Birdland, the Brooklyn Museum, Columbia University, La Casita de Chema, Maimonides Park, NYU, Open Jar Studios, Red Hook Winery, Russ & Daughters, Steinway & Sons Factory, Tom’s Restaurant, and the Wonder Wheel among other places.
"New York State of Mind" might be an obvious song choice, but there's more to it than that. Billy Joel wrote it in the mid-1970s, when the city was on the verge of economic collapse. It was a love letter to the city when most didn't dare.
"In this equally challenging time, we realized that this song was precisely the rally cry that New York needs. And so, with Billy’s support and approval, we set out to create an all-new recording and music video that we hope will inspire, lift the spirits of New Yorkers, and motivate them toward civic action," the group wrote.
Outside Russ & Daughters, Sara Bareilles summed it up well in an interview with NYC, saying the city is "the best mess."
"It's polar opposites smashed up next to each other and that's what I love," she added. "It's grit and it's grace, and it's magical and it's mayhem, and it's chaos and it's creativity, and it's all just one happy chaotic beautiful dance."
You can check out more interviews and learn more about NYC Next here.
