3 Billy Joel Songs From the 80s That You Have To Hear Twice To Understand

We already know from listening to hits like “Vienna” that artist Billy Joel often speaks in metaphors. That doesn’t mean his music isn’t worth listening to over and over again. Here are three Billy Joel songs from the 80s that say more than you probably think.

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“Allentown”

Although there is an Allentown, Pennsylvania, Billy Joel shared with The Morning Call that he isn’t necessarily talking about Allentown specifically in this song. Allentown is more so used as a metaphor for the death of the American Dream and the harsh realities of working-class life, as you can hear in the lyrics.

“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.”

“I was writing about the region, not necessarily Allentown itself,” Joel explained of the coal references in the song. “I talk about ‘They’ve taken all the coal from the ground.’ There’s no coal in that area, but there is coal mining in Pennsylvania. I used Allentown as a metaphor for the region.”

“Sleeping With The Television On”

From 1980’s Glass Houses, “Sleeping With The Television On” actually isn’t about television at all. If you listen closely, you’ll hear that the song is a metaphor for living passively and avoiding taking risks in life. In the chorus, Joel sings:

“All night long, all night long / You’ll shoot ’em down because you’re waiting / For somebody good to come on / But you’re sleeping with the television on.”

In a 2016 SiriusXM interview, Joel dove a little deeper into the song’s meaning. SongFacts shares the quote: “It’s about a guy who’s putting a girl down, but he’s putting her down because he knows she’s going to reject him if he comes onto her,” Joel explained. “So it’s sorta like sour grapes.”

“Where’s The Orchestra?”

Off of The Nylon Curtain album, Joel’s “Where’s The Orchestra?” is a perfect example of a metaphor at play—literally. However, you might not fully get it on the first listen-through.

“Where’s the orchestra?” Billy sings. “After all, this is my big night on the town / My introduction to the theater crowd / I assumed that the show would have a song / So I was wrong.”

Joel explained that the song is using “theater as a metaphor” for coming to terms with the realities of adult life. He told Sirius XM that it’s really about “a man who goes into adulthood expecting life to be a musical show and recognizing that no, it’s a play, and there’s not always going to be a lot of music and dancing in it.”

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