I love allentown! great song, and its actually a halfway decent city i live like a half hour from there. This song really describes this city back in the 50's. it is an old steel mill town very, very blue collar town.

Uuuuuumm, I think that the writer is trying to portray an era, or a phenomenon, of the eastern united-ststes. Its about more than just a town. Its a song writen about a dying way of life... Does that make sense??

It was written when they played in Allentown in 1982 after the "Rust Belt" of the northeast U.S. went to hell.

i live in allentown and we were just talking about this song in history class. it is about the economic recession and youth disallusionment of the late 1970s.

weezerific: what school you go to? i went to ahs. i can almost guess the teacher who talks about that shit.

This is an easy song to explain. This song is a story about the ordinary folk of Allentown, Pennsylvania and the Lehigh Valley (Bethlehem is next to or near Allentown) and the steel mills many of them worked at. The Lehigh Valley's economy was based upon the steel mills that were there, and when they closed lots of people became unemployed.

The first verse talks about how people of Billy Joel's parents' age typically grew up in the Lehigh Valley. "Out in Bethlehem they're killing time / Filling out forms / Standing in line" describes the mass of people applying for unemployment benefits after the layoffs. The typical man who lives around there who are Billy Joel's parents' age, the men of the Great Generation, participated in World War 2, may have met their future wife through the USO (an organization who entertains the troops when they're on duty), then were employed by the steel mills of the Valley after the war.

The second verse talks about the assumption that good times would continue for ordinary folk and later generations of Allentown. Teachers would encourage kids to get degrees and even those who didn't get one could rely on the steel mill economy to provide for their needs, or so people assumed. But after the closings, with the layoff of union employees and the unavailability of coal in the area, young people couldn't rely on that anymore.

The last lines of the song say that those of the Great Generation could take for granted all this economic opportunity, but younger people could not. And when the young people were drafted into the Vietnam War ("Threw an American Flag in Our Face"), it wasn't the same as with their parent's generation. Not only was the war unpopular, but many young people felt dispirited already because of the unemployment and the events of the 1960s, so for them it was an insult not an opportunity.
The following lines describe just how the situation in the Lehigh Valley can destroy the spirit of even the best people living there:

"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"

He doesn't feel he has a good reason to get up in the morning. What's actually really ingenious about this song is just how Billy Joel can take something as ordinary, unhappy and newspaperish as unemployment in a mill city metro area and turn it into a story and flowing song which many people can relate to. Billy Joel is a great songwriter and storyteller.

Here is a little history lesson for your history teachers: Ask your teacher to name one steel mill located in town of Allentown.

This song was written about Bethlehem, PA. Billy Joel decided to stick with the nearby town of Allentown (about 15 minute drive west on interstate 78) because he felt that the name "Bethlehem" would conjure up images of the birth place of Christ. The “Bethlehem Steel Corporation”, the company that employed most of the people of Bethlehem as well as the neighboring towns in the Lehigh Valley (Hellertown, Easton, and yes even Allentown) is still in business today (though at a diminished capacity). www.bethlehempaonline.com

Billy Joel was actually surprised when he was given the key to the city of Allentown. Some Lehigh Valley residents were irritated about this, as well as surprised. I guess the mayor of Allentown never bothered to listen to the lyrics. The song describes a very dark moment in American history (somewhat similar to the Great Depression but on a more limited scale).

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There is no doubt this song is about the blue collar towns in Pa. I am from Pittsburgh and it is the same story.America shipped the steel industry out of the country. So the jobs that were passed down through the families are gone. The middle class is history!

very real song i think, I love the line "To get at least as far as their old man got". it almost made me ry!

The line "they threw an American flag in our face," I think, refers to the Reagan Administration's attempt to fix the American post-industrial problem through vigorous patriotism and renewed faith in the American Dream. Unfortunately, this new optimism did not help create any new manufacturing jobs.

The thing is, He hit it right on the nose with this song. That is Allentown (and surrounding areas).

I'm from Rochester, NY and this song really strikes a chord. Kodak, Delphi, AC Delco, and Xerox downsized and laid off massive amounts of people and threw the area into a downward spiral. Only now are we starting to come out of it. The song resonates with everything thats happening in the area.

This song was out when my dad (we're Pittsburghers) lost his job @ the Steel Mill... makes life hard for a lot of hard-working families.. great job Billy for identifying the common hard times..

Shoehornhands: I'm a Rochester expat--in fact, I moved out because I didn't want to contend with the high cost of living, iffy job opportunities, and depressing news ("Kodak has announced that 5000 jobs will be cut in the next month. Two people are dead after a shootout on Lyell Ave. And now, the weather.")

Wow, I just went through and oldies downloading spree and this is my favorite song from that collection!! How wierd to see it commented in the "latest comments" section.