Submit a song!

Allentown
performed by Billy Joel
from the album The Nylon Curtain (Purchase from Amazon.com)
about the constraints of growing up in a steel working town:

"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"

"She calls out to the man on the street
'Sir, can you help me?
It's cold and I've nowhere to sleep,
Is there somewhere you can tell me?'
He walks on, doesn't look back
He pretends he can't hear her
Starts to whistle as he crosses the street
Seems embarrassed to be there"

"And the only tune I hear
Is the sound of the wind
As it blows through the town
Weave and spin, weave and spin"

"They paved paradise and put up a parking lot
With a pink hotel, a boutique and a swinging hot spot
Don't it always seem to go that you don't know what you've got
Till it's gone
They paved paradise and put up a parking lot"

"Once I thanked God for my treasures
Now like rust, it corrodes
I can't help bur blaming you going
On the coming, the coming of the roads"

"The punishment is capital
for those who lack in capital
because a public defender
can't remember the last time
that a brother wasn't treated like an animal"

Factory
performed by Bruce Springsteen
from the album Darkness on the Edge of Town (Purchase from Amazon.com)
about the struggles of the working class through the eyes of a boy:

"Through the mansions of fear, through the mansions of pain,
I see my daddy walking through them factory gates in the rain,
Factory takes his hearing, factory gives him life,
The working, the working, just the working life."

"I've got a fast car we've got a ticket to anywhere
been workin' at a convenience store
tryin' to save just a little bit a money
won't have to drive to far
just across the border and into the city
you and I can both get jobs
.......what need to be livin'"

"I see him everyday
In that blanket that he calls home
I wonder does he know
That his family they1re left alone"

"Walk right past and think about it more
Back at the crib I'm opening up the door
A pocket full of change, it don't mean a lot to me
My cup is half full, but his is empty"

"Strong wind destroy our home
Many dead, tonight it could be you
Strong wind, strong wind
Many dead, tonight it could be you"

"Johnny wants a brain, Johnny wants to suck on a
coke
Johnny wants a woman, Johnny wants to think of
a joke
Johnny's in America"

"Jacob was a dirt poor farm boy
Raised at the fork in the road in a clapboard house
And Rachael was a land baron's daughter
Born with a silver spoon in her mouth
Her daddy said he wouldn't stand
For Rachael to waste her life with a common man"

"Living on borrowed time and borrowed money
Sleepin' on the street there ain't a damn thing funny
Hand me down food and hand me down clothes
A rockabilly past of which nobody knows
Makes his home all over the place
He goes to sleep by falling down on his face"

"Although we have no silver spoon
Better days are coming soon
Now Nellie's working at the loom
And she gets paid on Friday"

"Merchandise, it keeps us in line...
What could a businessman ever want more
Than to have us sucking in his store
We owe you nothing
You have no control..."

"Bill collectors they ring my phone
And scare my wife when I'm not home
Got a bum education, double-digit inflation
Can't take the train to the job, there's a strike at the station"

"We want your homes,
We want your lives,
We want the things you won't allow us
We won't use guns,
We won't use bomgs,
We'll use the one thing we've got more of:
That's our minds."

"Theres no place like home
Inside these walls
safe from the cold
another night falls
whats mine is mine
So Ive been told
theres no place like home"

"Uncivilized we call him,
but I just saw him eat off the food we waste
Civilization, are we really civilized, yes or no?
Who are we to judge?
When thousands of innocent men could be brutally enslaved
and killed over a racist grudge"

"They got you thinkin' that what you need is what they sellin'
Made you think that buyin is rebellin'
From the theaters to malls, on every shore
The thin line between entertainment and war"

"But I've dreamed about an island all I got's a bucket of sand.
I'd give my eyes to give you all your dreams
Now I get to see my family slipping through my hands"

"And then Georgie would make the fire lights
As it was, log would burnin' through the nights
Then we would cook cornmeal porridge
Of which I'll share with you
My feet is my only carriage"

"You people can watch while I'm scrubbing these floors
And I'm scrubbin' the floors while you're gawking
Maybe once ya tip me and it makes ya feel swell
In this crummy Southern town
In this crummy old hotel
But you'll never guess to who you're talkin'.
No. You couldn't ever guess to who you're talkin'."

"You're a rich girl and you've gone too far
'Cause you know it don't matter anyway
You can rely on the old man's money
You can rely on the old man's money"

"Sit a while with TV's hungry child,
big belly swelled
Oh, for the price of a coke or a smoke
keep alive those hungry eyes
Take a look at me, what you see in me,
mirror look at me
Face it all, face it all again."

"There must be something in the rain
I'm not sure just what that means
Abuelita talks of the sins of man
Of dust that's in our hands
There must be something in the rain,
Well, what else would cause this pain
Those planes cure the plants so things can grow
Oh no, it must be something in the rain."

"While they're standing in the welfare lines,
crying at the doorsteps of those armies of salvation,
wasting time in the unemployment lines,
sitting around waiting for a promotion.
Poor people gonna rise up
and get their share
Poor people gonna rise up
and take what's theirs"

"Children play with rusted cars
Sores cover their hands
Politicians laugh and drink
Drunk to all demands"

"You know, the man just upped my rent last night
'Cos whitey's on the moon
No hot water, no toilets, no lights
But whitey's on the moon
I wonder why he's uppin' me
'Cos whitey's on the moon?
Well, I was already givin' him fifty a week
And now whitey's on the moon"

"I laid in the ghetto flat
Cold and numb
I heard the rats tell the beadbugs
To give the roaches some
And everybody wants to know why I sing the blues
I've been around a long time
I've really paid my dues"