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Episode-127- TSP Rewind – Billy Joel’s Allentown – History Lesson, Prophecy or Both

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Today is an episode of TSP Rewind, commercial free versions of past podcast episodes. Today’s episode was originally Episode-819- Billy Joel’s Allentown – History Lesson, Prophecy or Both and was originally published on Jan 12, 2012.

The following are the original show notes from that episode..

Today we are going to do something completely different and look at the old Billy Joel hit from 1982, “Allentown”. My hope is after you hear today’s show you will fully understand what I mean when I say, “history, prophecy or both” in regard to the song.

Join me today as we discuss…

  • What “closing the factories down” was actually like
  • Why unemployment was a national problem but worse in the coal and steel regions
  • What the song means when talks about “weekends at the Jersey shore”
  • The “restlessness” that was handed down
  • “Graduations hang on the wall” today they are college degrees vs. high school diplomas
  • The multiple broken promises that generation experienced
  • What “filling out forms, standing in lines” means to us today
  • What “hard to stay” is really all about
  • The true nature of the WWII generation post war prosperity
  • How “one word plastics” from the movie “The Graduate” relates to this song
  • What “the threw and American flag in our face” was all about
  • How the “flag in the face” relates to today
  • How this song is really about one of the massive shifts in the world
  • How this generation got caught in this shift
  • Some of the other massive shifts on the past 200 years
  • The real nature of the current shift

 

Lyrics of the Song Allentown

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

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 and 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

Every child had a pretty good shot
To get at least as far as their old man got
Something happened on the way to that place
They threw an American flag in our face

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

And it’s getting very hard to stay
And we’re living here in Allentown

Resources for Today’s Show

 

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Comments

Episode-127- TSP Rewind – Billy Joel’s Allentown – History Lesson, Prophecy or Both — 5 Comments

  1. [Typing this comment from the ABE area, how did I miss this episode?! (Comment, more like a separate blog post!)]

    Spot on description of the Lehigh Valley and surrounding areas Jack. Naturally, I expected no less.

    My family, (grandparents or older) were either farmers, steel workers, or coal miners. After that was pretty much all factory workers. I watched my Dad work the swing and off shifts and ultimately get him nowhere. Broke then, still broke now. Only the occasional trip to the Jersey shore, and Bradley Beach at that…

    Did I learn from him? Nope! I put 10 years too many into factory work as well, exchanged my 20s for job security and decent pay. (Although this was in another state, same mentality all over though.) Still on the journey breaking away from the “traditional” income streams.

    I remember my Great Grandmother (born 1918) talking about how Allentown used to be a destination, a reward for a hard week. They would put on their nicest clothes, get a nice dinner, and walk around downtown. Had to stop by the Hess’s department store too.. Couldn’t believe it, Allentown was anything but a destination in the late 80s/ early 90s.

    Totally agree, growing up at the bar (read as Club) was just fine for us. Plenty of happy Christmases, Easters, and other holidays there. Santa Claus with presents, Easter egg hunts. Where’s Dad, who cares?

    There has been a lot of effort in the area towards urban revitalization, and it is making strides. Bethlehem Steel is a bunch of shops and a casino. An entire block of downtown Allentown turned into the PPL Center, a great venue for concerts and hockey games.  Plants and small trees grow on the ridges surrounding Palmerton again. (I believe the Wheels of Time museum was established while you were in Northampton.) Is it enough? Hmm, it’s progress.

    In case you missed it, Martin Tower was demolished last year. (For those not in the know, Martin Tower was the corporate headquarters for Bethlehem Steel. It was shaped like a plus sign (+) to make more corner offices for the powers that were.)

    The big employers in the area are still the factories, but even more so now the warehouses/ distribution centers. Same mentality though. Same “benefits.” Then there’s the (currently) booming “healthcare” providers. One of the best things I ever did was move several states away. Still not sure how we ended up back here…

     

  2. This song always seemed special to me, particularly after my brother moved back East and decided to live in Allentown! For a song of this style the story it tells is amazingly complete and full of meaning (even though Korea was left out). We had steel mills near where I lived in Michigan, too. I even visited one once. The union politics which built the manufacturing boom that was part of and followed WW2 were also one of its weak points. It built in a conservative, entrenched middle class, when what the country needed was a versatile and resilient middle class. California (where I was born and where I live now) has suffered greatly from this. It’s not that the union movement had no merit, but it wasn’t sane enough to survive into a “post-industrial” United States. I have struggled so much personally from the mistaken assumptions and missed opportunities fostered by that era. I live today as, basically, a welfare recipient, even though I worked proudly for most of my life. And if I cannot figure out how this new style of “entrepreneurship” works, I may remain so.

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