"Living Here in Allentown"
5
By mwbarre
This might be one of the saddest songs that Billy Joel ever recorded, although you'd never guess it from the melody. It is especially sad to people who live in the Rust Belt, that area in the Northeast and Midwest that has suffered from a long-term decline in manufacturing jobs. Billy Joel is singing about the decline of nearby Bethlehem Steel and how it affected the residents of the Allentown, PA, metropolitan area. However, that was just one of several areas affected by the decline of the nation's manufacturing industry - as many people in the Rust Belt (especially the Detroit and Cleveland areas) can readily tell you.
