I’m sure that somewhere in the Clintons' house in Chappaqua, there is a dusty basement storeroom where old, unused items are stored in sealed boxes.
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.
Some of those boxes contain the Clinton’s old vinyl record collection. Some light jazz, lots of folk rock from the late sixties and early seventies (Judy Collins—they named Chelsea after the song “Chelsea Morning”), and tapering off through the late seventies and early eighties, when they were probably too busy to spend a lot of time buying and listening to records.
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.
But maybe, at the back of the box, there is a copy of Billy Joel’s “The Nylon Curtain.” My own record collection is probably picking up around the time that theirs is tapering off—most of my early records are the American versions of the Beatles albums, Paul McCartney and Wings and Billy Joel. Around 1979-1980, as I was starting high school, I got more serious: the British versions of the early Beatles albums, Bob Dylan, Elvis Costello, The Clash.
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.
In 1982, I went off to college and immediately set about getting a slot at the university station: R.E.M., The Smithereens, The Jam, Aztec Camera, The Violent Femmes, The Fleshtones, Game Theory, Rain Parade, Mod Fun, XTC, The Feelies, The Replacements, Husker Dü, etc. But my roommate liked Billy Joel, and at least through the Nylon Curtain, so did I. I think we wore that cassette out. We went to see that tour at the Meadowlands.
And we're waiting here in Allentown.
But they've taken all the coal from the ground
And the union people crawled away.
Therefore, I laugh when Clinton feigns outrage because Barack Obama observes that perhaps the people of Pennsylvania (and Ohio, and probably every other state of the Union) might be bitter. Billy Joel was singing of this bitterness in a popular song that was released in 1982. “Allentown” rose to #17 on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart.
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.
So while Clinton, the RNC and John McCain, and a bunch of Beltway pundits reach for their smelling salts and swoon over the supposed “elitism,” there it is: bitterness, justifiable bitterness, enshrined in a 26 year-old song.
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.