SONG OF THE DAY
“Allentown” by Billy Joel (The Nylon Curtain, Columbia Records, 1982).
INTERESTING FACTS (a la wikipedia)
– “Allentown” is a Billy Joel song, which first appeared on Joel’s The Nylon Curtain (1982) album, accompanied by a conceptual music video.
– It later appeared on the following Joel albums: Greatest Hits: Volume II (1985), 2000 Years: The Millennium Concert (2000), The Essential Billy Joel (2001), and 12 Gardens Live (2006) albums.
– “Allentown” is the lead track on The Nylon Curtain, which was the seventh best-selling album of the year in 1982.
– The song reached #17 on the Billboard Hot 100.
– The video, directed by Russell Mulcahy, was also in heavy rotation on MTV during 1982 and 1983. The original airing of the song featured rear male nudity in the opening of the song as steelworkers showered in their locker-room; the scene was edited from subsequent airings on MTV.
– Upon its release, and especially in subsequent years, “Allentown” has emerged as an anthem of blue collar America, representing both the aspirations and frustrations of America’s working class in the late 20th century. The song’s theme is of the resolve of those coping with the demise of the American manufacturing industry in the later part of the 20th century. More specifically, it depicts the depressed, blue-collar livelihood of Allentown and Bethlehem, Pennsylvania’s residents in the wake of Bethlehem Steel’s decline and eventual closure.
– Joel witnessed this first-hand while performing at the Lehigh Valley’s numerous music venues and colleges at the start of his career in the late 1960s and early 1970s.
– The introductory rhythm of the song is reminiscent of the sound of a rolling mill converting steel ingots into I-beams or other shapes. Such a sound was commonly heard throughout South Bethlehem when the Bethlehem Steel plant was in operation from 1857 through 1995.
– When Joel first started writing the song, it was originally named “Levittown”, after the Long Island town right next to Hicksville, the town in which Joel had grown up. He had originally written a chord and lyrics for the song, but struggled for a topic for the song. Joel remembered reading about the decline of the steel industry in the Lehigh Valley, which included the small cities of both Bethlehem and Allentown, where he got the inspiration for “Allentown”.
– The original idea for “Levittown” was in the 1970s, but “Allentown” was not written until 1982.
– A year after the song was released, the mayor of Allentown sent a letter to Joel about giving some of his royalties to the town. Mayor Joseph Daddona, who sent the letter, said it would help for scholarships for future musicians in Joel’s footsteps. On January 20, 1983, the letter was mailed to Joel with an article next day, quoting Daddona as saying the following: “Not only would this fund be a great way to share a tiny part of your good fortune to others in Allentown, it would also help keep alive the ‘Allentown’ song and the Billy Joel legend (which you’ve already become here).”
– When Joel revisited Allentown on the 25th anniversary of the song on November 30, 2007, the musician had a conversation with a local newspaper, The Morning Call. In the interview he explained where his inspiration came from and how the song came along.
– The Nylon Curtain is the eighth studio album by Billy Joel.
– The Nylon Curtain peaked at #7 in the Billboard album charts, with two million sales in the United States alone.
– It was one of the first albums to be digitally recorded, mixed and mastered.
LYRICS
Well we’re living here in Allentown
And they’re closing all the factories down
Out in Bethlehem they’re killing time
Filling out forms
Standing in line.
Well our fathers fought the Second World War
Spent their weekends on the Jersey Shore
Met our mothers at the USO
Asked them to dance
Danced with them slow
And we’re living here in Allentown.
But the restlessness was handed down
And it’s getting very hard to stay
Ay, ay, ay-ay, oh oh oh.
Well we’re waiting here in Allentown
For the Pennsylvania we never found
For the promises our teachers gave
If we worked hard
If we behaved.
So the graduations hang on the wall
But they never really helped us at all
No they never taught us what was real
Iron or coke,
Chromium steel.
And we’re waiting here in Allentown.
But they’ve taken all the coal from the ground
And the union people crawled away
Ay, ay, ay-ay.
Every child had a pretty good shot
To get at least as far as their old man got.
If something happened on the way to that place
They threw an American flag in our face, oh oh oh.
Well I’m living here in Allentown
And it’s hard to keep a good man down.
But I won’t be getting up today
Ay, ay, ay-ay.
[GUITAR SOLO]
Ay, ay, ay-ay, oh oh oh.
And it’s getting very hard to stay.
And we’re living here in Allentown.