MovieChat Forums > Gung Ho (1986) Discussion > Was it based on a Billy Joel song...

Was it based on a Billy Joel song title? Read the lyrics.


The movie take place in a car plant which is a factory and it run by japness men. Michael Keaton make a bet that the americans can do better then the japness. The men get into a fight and they all want to quit and the day of the 4th of July union picnic,and they get a note from the govern that the factory is closing down. Sounds like something from a Billy Joel song called Allen Town. Read the lyrics


Well we are 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

Well our fathers fought the second World War
Spent their weekends on the Jersy Shors
Met our mothers in the USO
Asked them to dance
Dance with them slow

And we're living here in AllenTown
But the restlessness was handed down
And its getting very hard to say

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 graduatons hang on the wall
But they never really helped us at all
No they never taught us what was real
Iron and coke
And chromium steel

And we're waiting here in AllenTown
But they're taken all the coal from the ground
And the union people crawled away

Every child has a pretty good shot
To get as least as far as their old man got
But something happened on the way to that place
They threw an American flag in our place

Well I'am living here in Allentown
And it's hard to keep a good man down
But I won't be getting very hard to stay
And we're living here in AllenTown

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ALLENTOWN Not 2 words---1---3rd or 4th largest city in the state---I was born there---It's in eastern PA---this was filmed in Pittsburgh and around there, can tell by the accents

I'd rather go hunting with Dick Cheney, than driving with Ted Kennedy





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It would seem more accurate to say that both Billy Joel's song and Gung ho are based on the same sociological phenomenon. The concept of alienation from one's social context as a result of globalization is larger than either the song or the movie.

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