| "Allentown" | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Single by Billy Joel | ||||
| from the album The Nylon Curtain | ||||
| B-side | "Elvis Presley Blvd." | |||
| Released | 1982 | |||
| Format | 7" | |||
| Recorded | 1982 | |||
| Genre | Rock | |||
| Length | 3:48 | |||
| Label | Columbia | |||
| Writer(s) | Billy Joel | |||
| Producer | Phil Ramone | |||
| Billy Joel singles chronology | ||||
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"Allentown" is a song by American singer Billy Joel, which first appeared on Joel's The Nylon Curtain (1982) album, accompanied by a conceptual music video. It later appeared on Joel's 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.[1] The video, directed by Russell Mulcahy, was also in heavy rotation on MTV during 1982 and 1983. The original airing of the song featured partial 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.
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The song's theme is of the resolve of those coping with the demise of the American manufacturing industry in the latter part of the 20th century. More specifically, it depicts the depressed, blue-collar livelihood of residents of Allentown, Pennsylvania and Bethlehem, Pennsylvania in the wake of Bethlehem Steel's decline and eventual closure.[1] 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 progression 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. While the steel industry was based in Bethlehem with none of it in Allentown, Joel named the song "Allentown" because it sounded better nothing and it was easier to find other words to rhyme with "Allentown." Although Joel started writing the song in the late 1970s, it wasn't finished until 1982.[2]
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.[3] On January 20, 1983, the letter was mailed to Joel, and an local paper published an article on the subject the 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).[3]
The song was met with mixed responses in Allentown. Some criticized the song as degrading and full of working-class archetypes.[4] But when Joel returned to the area following the album's release and the song became a hit record, he was awarded the key to the city by Allentown's mayor, who praised it as "a gritty song about a gritty city."
Before a sold-out crowd at Stabler Arena in neighboring Bethlehem, People magazine reported that Joel was greeted enthusiastically with a five minute standing ovation as he closed his third encore with "Allentown." At the end of the song and extended ovation, Joel was greeted with even more sustained applause when, in an apparent defense of the song's meaning, he pointedly told the Allentown crowd, as is his wont at the end of every one of his concerts: "Don't take any shit from anybody."[5]
| Chart (1982) | Peak position |
|---|---|
| Australian Singles Chart | 49 |
| Canadian Singles Chart[6] | 21 |
| New Zealand Singles Chart | 37 |
| U.S. Billboard Hot 100 | 17 |
| U.S. Billboard Hot Adult Contemporary Tracks | 19 |
| U.S. Billboard Mainstream Rock Tracks | 28 |