"More than a stunning debut. It is the announcement of a bold new literary voice"
—Stephen Chbosky, author of The Perks of Being a Wallflower

It’s incredible to me that you have a Wikipedia page. You have a Wikipedia page and, thanks to modern technology, an album that came out three years ago. I can listen to you, right now. Literally, right now, I, and everyone else with a computer, could go online and hear your voice, almost a century after it was recorded. And I have, and so have thousands of others. Thousands of people have heard your voice today. Hundreds of thousands. And so have I.
I come from a line of performers. My great uncle Andrew played the trumpet in the army. You, on my grandfather’s side. Far enough down my grandmother’s genial line, you’ll bump into Drew and John Barrymore, famous in the movie business. Even my dad, politician and computer geek, loves to sing and play around on instruments. It’s almost enough to make me believe in destiny. Maybe not destiny, but definitely legacy.
Fame is an odd thing to think about. So is what makes somebody real. You’re real to me because my father is real, and his father, and his father. Your genes are in my blood. But you’re also real, like, now. Anyone who’s played Bioshock Infinite knows your voice. Same with Boardwalk Empire. You’re real to them, too. And when I hear your music, when my dad calls me into the room to talk about which decidedly more famous celebrity you supposedly slept with, you’re real in that sense too. In the way that Kim Kardashian is real, though, not in the way that my other great great whatever grandparents are. You’ve been mythicized by your own descendants. You’ve been simultaneously put on this everlasting “fame” pedestal, and wiped from common knowledge. Most people have at least heard about your influence, but you yourself are lost to history.
I want to follow in your footsteps. I want to be remembered, not for what I have done, but for where I’ve impacted. I want people to be touched by my work decades after I’ve gone. I want my great-great-grand-something children to read about me on Wikipedia, almost a century after I’ve done whatever thing it was that deserved a Wikipedia page, and think about how I was a person, who did real things, played real music, changed the world. Or, maybe not change the world, but leave a fingerprint.
Thanks for your music, and thanks for your legacy. I hope to do you proud.