It starts off with an electric guitar rendition of a 1940's European police siren, then an innocuous little piano intro, which ends up evolving into a post-apocalyptic tale of a future New York.
From the 1976 album Turnstiles, all one has to do is watch Taxi Driver (also a '76 release, just about the time my dad was living on the Lower East Side) to realize that this vision of a future New York wasn't so far-fetched. And the lyrics suggest that no one really notices some of what goes on in 2017.
Of course, since Giuliani took over in 1994 and helped clean the place up, this future seems a bit less likely. But I know the culture, and to someone living in Manhattan between circa 1970-1990, Billy Joel probably seemed a bit a New Yorker's Nostradamus.
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