Sponsoring Professor's Note: The following represents a combination of two projects that Sahil produced for English 1121 (Composition II). For a unit on musical analysis, Sahil chose to examine Billy Joel's "Allentown" as a way to address commonalities between his community's socioeconomic struggles and those of the town depicted in the song. For the final project, Sahil translated this essay into a multimedia presentation. Both are presented here. -Prof. Kwong

The one thing New Yorkers have in common is their undying hate for the MTA, and the uneasiness we feel when there are delays. Recently, biking seemed to be a superior alternative to the MTA, but a lack of progress in the field shows unpromising results. Why aren't underprivileged people served, and what happens when they feel isolated and forgotten? Despite being from a completely different time, Billy Joel's “Allentown” couldn’t be more relevant today. Tackling issues like unemployment and instability in American households, "Allentown" harbors implications about isolation and forgotten communities that, amidst today's current biking crisis, are worth addressing.

“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.” These alarming lyrics start off Joel’s song, referring to the way that thousands of people moved to boomtowns like Allentown, PA, during the mid 20th century. With the rise of the industrial age and factories needing more employees with each new day, factories like "Bethlehem" Steel employed thousands of laborers, all of whom resided in Allentown. In hopes of finding stability in their lives, many people saw Allentown as something like a promised land. Indeed, these boomtowns actually seemed to boom at first; the new residents of these communities found reliable income and the stability that they'd been longing for. However, Issues started to arrive not long after, as a massive wave of deindustrialization took over the country. Often associated with automaker plants in the Rust Belt having a mass shutdown, the industry began to decline, as did employment rates. "While Bethlehem Steel and Mack Trucks remain the largest employers in the area, they employ less than 5% of the area's total workforce of 295,800."(Dunlap). Between 1977 and 1982, over 30,000 employees were laid off during this mass unemployment saga, leading to all their families living in instability as well. These families had moved to Allentown because it was made to seem promising, and was a safe choice for their future, but they were eventually left out to dry, and had no one to help them. The article by Dunlap also goes on to provide unemployment statistics, stating that unemployment rates in the area only increased, going up from 7.8% to 11.9% in just a few years.

Tackling issues like unemployment and instability in American households, "Allentown" harbors implications about isolation and forgotten communities that, amidst today's current biking crisis, are worth addressing.

The effects of this decline in employment were very apparent, as everyone scrambled to find a source of income. In the song, Joel states, “Down in Bethlehem they’re killing time, filling out forms, waiting in line.” These words have a few different meanings. For one, many of the laid off workers were now traveling to other factories and standing in long lines in order to fill out job applications. The harsh truth however, was that there were also a very limited number of jobs for an ever-increasing candidate pool. Furthermore, the lines that people were waiting in were also lines for welfare and governmental assistance. With such a scarcity of opportunities, many people had to resort to aid from the government as a means of getting by. An employee of Bethlehem Steel, Guillermo Lopez, worked there for 30 years and was still let go of his duties even after his loyalty. NPR writer Juilan Abraham writes, “The song is mainly about Bethlehem Steel, a nearby steel factory that used to be one of the biggest in the world. At its peak, it employed over 30,000 people. Guillermo Lopez worked there for almost 30 years. Then, like everyone else at Bethlehem Steel, he was laid off” (Abraham). This is crucial in understanding just why people felt so forgotten and isolated. Regardless of working hard in the same place for decades and helping it grow, employees like Guillermo Lopez were fired without any hesitation.

These employees who felt safe and comfortable with their positions were suddenly left to fend for themselves, without any backing or support. Because of the industrial decline at the time, it was extremely challenging for these unemployed laborers to find work or an income elsewhere. Continuing on the theme of feeling isolated, we can look at the melody, lyrics, and instrumentation of the song to explore deeper themes. “Allentown” uses pianos and drums heavily throughout its duration. When I listened to the song again, I paid attention to the lyrics and how they synced up with the instruments really well. For example, at around 2:01 in the song, Joel bellows out a sad truth, singing that "The Union people crawled away". The drums and piano then crescendo, and at 2:11, the drums are loudly banged to hammer in the point of the lyrics. This point is that the union, the people meant to support the laborers, also abandoned them, leaving them hopeless and angry.

An argument has been made that “Allentown” was exaggerated and not an accurate representation of the actual events. A lot of this push back comes against Joel’s statement that it was getting hard to stay in Allentown, and people wanted to leave. While poverty rates in Allentown were going up at the time and are still relatively high today, at 23.3%, Joel might’ve wrongly assumed the true resilience of the town’s residents. The current mayor of the town, ...Tuerk, states,“It’s so wrong,” Tuerk said of that lyric. “I don’t know how it felt in 1982, but it doesn’t feel like that now. It’s not getting hard to stay, it’s getting hard to – it’s hard to leave” (quoted in Abraham). The article claims that while the poverty and unemployment rates were increasing during the time this song was released, they were still relatively close to the national average, only above by a small percentage.

The mayor's claims here are very reasonable, and after looking at the statistics, it does seem like “Allentown'' did take some creative liberties in dramatizing just how bad unemployment was in that specific area, as it was almost that high everywhere else in the country. At the same time, while unemployment rates weren’t a lot higher than the national average, the sheer amount of laborers being out of work in this town was a really high number. It wasn't just the 30,000+ former employees who were affected, either; all of their families were, too. If an employee like Guillermo Lopez worked at the same place for 3 decades, they and their families would feel safe in the assumption that they had the support of their managers and bosses. To be suddenly cast off and discarded would only make them all feel hopelessness and insecurity.

Furthermore, I think that the song still has an important place regardless of its accuracy. It gives a voice to masses who were voiceless, especially through its repeated four syllable division in many verses of the song. This division is often used when talking about steps that residents were supposed to follow in order to obtain success. "Filling out forms, waiting in line... If we worked hard, if we behaved" (Joel). Through this division, Joel comments on how an easy-to-follow procedure was created for any American to follow in search of stability. As easy as it was made to look, however, it unraveled very fast.

By placing emphasis on this idea about false promises, Joel highlights how people in these communities were tricked into believing a false tale, something that members of my community can attest to as well. My neighborhood, too, received a false promise of new biking stations, cleared bike paths, and a general increase in funding towards biking. However, months had gone by before any progress had been made. Joel's song thus resonates with me very well because of what happens in my own community. When citizens brought up to officials the need for progress with the biking infrastructure in our neighborhood, they disregarded our argument, claiming that they were "working on" the project without any further news of improvement. Like the residents of Allentown, the residents of my community were faced with the challenge of being pushed to the side and not having any support to fall back on. As Maya Kaufman wrote in a 2019 article about the program, "more than 70 percent of neighborhoods with a median income less than $20,000 lack access to bike-sharing, while every neighborhood with a median income above $200,000 can easily grab a bike, according to last week's report by New York Communities for Change” (Kaufman). This report, by a local newspaper outlet 5 years ago, illustrates the long wait we’ve had to endure; detailing the plan for Citi Bike expansion into neighborhoods like Jackson Heights, it then elaborates on how communities with high-income residents had much better access to it than low-income neighborhoods.

Like residents in Allentown, residents of my own neighborhood have felt forgotten over the long years we've had to wait for something to finally change. While initially seeming like a specific portrayal of small town unemployment in a small town, "Allentown" actually encapsulates the experiences of so many people in situations where they feel left behind. It's not just a catchy song about instability. It's also an ode to any community longing to be heard.