Musical Reminder why PA Must Choose Obama

This week, Barack Obama was endorsed by Bruce Springsteen. It was not lost on most of us that the picture Springsteen paints in many of his songs reflects the mood about which Obama spoke in his now infamous San Francisco “bitter” speech.

This got me to thinking about which other contemporary song writers have written songs that portray the desperate times that some of us live in, times that an Obama presidency directly addresses. So, tonight I leave you with a song from Billy Joel that dates back to the Reagan era. It takes place in Pennsylvania, and sadly, it proves that 26 years of Washington promises haven’t changed the lives of some Pennsylvanians very much at all. I hope the good people of PA consider this when they go to the polls on Tuesday.

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 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

(Written by Billy Joel, lyrics obtained from http://billyjoel.com/site.html)

Respectfully,
Rutherford

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