"The Nylon Curtain" is Billy Joel's "Magical Mystery Tour." (p. 85)

Allentown is the album at its high point, with Joel's chunky piano rhythm complemented by assembly-line sound effects that conjure a cartoon factory where a whistle sticks fingers in its own mouth to call the troops to work. The scene, however, isn't comic, for this is a plant that is wilting, and a town that's dying while its young people ask, "What happened?" There's empathy in this tune—Joel might not have lost a factory gig, but he knows about chances washed away in America. The same can't be said for Goodnight Saigon. Though delicately beautiful,… it's an ambitious but misguided attempt to capture an alien experience. Collecting images from Apocalypse Now does not an authentic testimonial make.

Pressure puts these outward struggles in the realm of the personal, and the tough syncopation snaps all the right synapses...