Biography
"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.
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.
A reprise of "Sixteen Going on Seventeen" is also sung by Maria and Liesl in the Sound of Music play and in the movie when the Captain and Maria come back from their honeymoon and Rolf has rejected Liesl.
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