for some reason SWB has been listening to a lot of Billy Joel recently, the first records I listened to as a kid, after school on my own, lifting the vinyl onto the old record-player in the never-used best room.
The SWB parents of course, after they got sick of Nigeria, and WAWA*, moved to depressed former heavy-industry Allentown, Pennsylvania. Just like the song.
But then Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy got shot, and there were race riots and the KKK, and the Cold War, and SWB's dad got a letter trying to draft him for Vietnam... and they had two small kids... so it just seemed like a good time to get out.
So they went to the UK in 1969.
And enjoyed the British Welfare State at its zenith.
not very exciting.
but more so than SWB's life.
yikes
*West Africa Wins Again: despite all the efforts of man, the climate and culture of West Africa conspire to defeat his efforts to improve his let. See the Poisonwood Bible.
Allentown
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 has 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 it's getting very hard to stay
in Allentown
Allentown
Posted by blog/stupidwhiteboy
at 5:01 PM BST
Updated: Thursday, 11 September 2003 5:27 PM BST
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Updated: Thursday, 11 September 2003 5:27 PM BST
Post Comment | View Comments (1) | Permalink | Share This Post