The film opens on a pizza parlor, where Vi is serving up her last pizza. She's moving to New York to follow her dream of writing great songs. The next scene is at a night club, where her friend Gloria announces to everyone that Vi's leaving tomorrow. She requests one song. Violet resists, but her friends pull her on stage and they sing "I Will Survive."

The next scene is in Violet's modest frame home that she shares with her widowed father. He's none too pleased that she's moving away, especially to the big city. Violet says she won't go without his blessing. He doesn't want to give it, but of course realizes he can't hang on to his baby girl forever.

Gloria drives Vi to NYC and they arrive in Chinatown to find her tiny dump of an apartment. It is truly nasty-dreary, rundown, filthy. The sink is rusty and the stove looks unusable. For emergencies, Gloria hands Vi a roll of money, which Vi doesn't accept. But Gloria looks at the apartment and says this in an emergency right here, so she puts the wad of bills in the freezer and says "I'm freezing your assets." Gloria says a tearful goodbye and Vi unpacks her keyboard and starts to play. The neighbors pound on the walls to get her to stop, so she finds herself up on the rooftop to practice her music.

The next scenes show Vi going from music company to music company, trying to give her demo tape to anyone who will listen. The receptionists are mean and snippy, and she gets discouraged.