Joel's speech at the premier contemporary music school was a defense of the musician's vocation — delivered to an audience that had heard the question 'When are you going to get a real job?' as many times as Joel had. He argued that music connected people in a way no other art form could: 'Not all people are born with the particular gift that we have: the gift of being able to express ourselves through music.' The 'wizard' metaphor captured Joel's view of musicians as people who perform a kind of magic — transforming human emotion into something shared and universal. 'People who don't have this ability still need to find a way to give a voice to what they're thinking and feeling, to find something that connects them with others.' Musicians provided that connection, and the power to do so was both a gift and a responsibility.