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

Well our fathers fought the Second World War / Spent their weekends on the Jersey Shore / Met our mothers in the USO / Asked them to dance, danced with them slow / And we’re living here in Allentown

But the restlessness was handed down /And it’s getting very hard to stay

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

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, and chromium steel / And we’re waiting here in Allentown

But they’ve taken all the coal from the ground / And the Union people crawled away

Every child had a pretty good shot / To get at least as far as their old man got / But 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

[By Billy Joel © Columbia Records, 1982]