Reaction To Song in Allentown
The song was met with mixed responses in Allentown. Some criticized the song as degrading and full of working-class archetypes. But when Joel returned to the area following the album's release and the song became a hit record, he was awarded the key to the city by Allentown's mayor, who praised it as "a gritty song about a gritty city."
Before a sold-out crowd at Stabler Arena in neighboring Bethlehem, People magazine reported that Joel was greeted enthusiastically with a five minute standing ovation as he closed his third encore with "Allentown." At the end of the song and extended ovation, Joel was greeted with even more sustained applause when, in an apparent defense of the song's meaning, he pointedly told the Allentown crowd, as is his wont at the end of every one of his concerts: "Don't take any shit from anybody."
Read more about this topic: Allentown (song)
Famous quotes containing the words reaction to, reaction and/or song:
“In contrast to revenge, which is the natural, automatic reaction to transgression and which, because of the irreversibility of the action process can be expected and even calculated, the act of forgiving can never be predicted; it is the only reaction that acts in an unexpected way and thus retains, though being a reaction, something of the original character of action.”
—Hannah Arendt (1906–1975)
“The excessive increase of anything often causes a reaction in the opposite direction.”
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“You praised and knew
the song they made was worthless
and the note,
they sung
was dross.”
—Hilda Doolittle (1886–1961)