Home-made music video of Billy Joel’s “Allentown”.

Seth Dixon, Ph.D.‘s insight:

Many teachers use Billy Joel’s classic song and music video Allentown as a teaching tool to introduce the topic of deindustrialization in the Rust Belt of the United States.  This alternative music video version adds some useful teaching images to help students contextualize the lyrics. 

Tags: labor, industry, economic, unit 6 industry and video.

See on www.youtube.com

Another song to consider using is Telegraph Road by Dire Straits; the song follows a town as it industrialized and as it later deindustrialized.

AllenTown