All the way back in the blog's earliest days, when part of the ethos was to have new content uploaded every day - how quaint! - I posted this South Melbourne Hellas oriented reworking of an AC/DC lyric by then new but now old friend Conya. It seems blog favourite Savvas Tzionis has decided to do something similar with Billy Joel's 'Allentown', broadening his scope to match up the plight of the working class Pennsylvanians with that of those stuck in NPL Hell. It has a taste of the 'seven days of bitterness' about it.
Allentown
Well we’re living in the NPL
And the football clubs are stuck in this hell
Out in Mooroolbark they’re killing time
Third string imports
Will they survive?
Well our fathers came out of after the war
Spent their weekends at Olympic Park
Took their kids out to the NSL
Left them to watch
But where was the zeal?
Now we’re living in the NPL
But the restlessness was handed down
And its getting very hard to play
Well we’re waiting in the NPL
For the A-League we never found
For the promises our leader’s gave
If we worked hard
But we didn't behave
So the premierships hang on the wall
But they never really helped us at all
No we never learnt what was real
Mainstream Appeal
Lowy Westfield
And we’re waiting in the NPL
But they've ruined all the national teams
And the old fans they just crawled away
Every team had a pretty good shot
To get as far as their ability got
But something happened on the way to that place
They threw the wogs out and they kicked in our face
Well we’re playing in the NPL
And its hard to keep a good team down
But we won’t be going up today
And its getting very hard to play
Cause we’re stuck here in the NPL
It has since dawned on me that the poor folks of Allentown have become Trump's 'Rust Belt Racists'!
ReplyDeleteWhat does it say about us NPLers? :)
I think your answer lies in some of the people you find when doing a search on @smfc in Twitter.
DeleteWhat we really need is a full 'Nebraska' meets NPL song cycle.
ReplyDeleteI remember a critic once comparing Billy Joel unfavourably to Springsteen.
ReplyDeleteI didn't get why they were linked. Now I do
'Stuck here in ..... Victoria'?
ReplyDeleteAnother song title popped up in my head in relation to Oakleigh.
ReplyDeleteSlim Dusty's 'A Pub with no Beer' .... 'A Club with no Fans'. But I barely know the song and the lyric's don't have any analogous feelings like Allentown did.
Also ..... I never really noticed your 'Seven stages of bitterness' comment.
If this is supposed to be the same as the 7 stages of Grief, then I skipped the first 2:
1) shock and denial.
2) pain and guilt.
In fact I was the opposite in relation to 1. I fully expected it to succeed.