Waterbird Board: Space seven

Despite the light and humorous tone of the song, there is still a sense of bitterness in it in lines like these. Despite the years of work that went into his song, the faceless industry pares it down, leading to a sense of loss like we see in "Captain Jack." Similarly, even though it deals with a very different lifestyle from that in "Allentown," neither can get by without hard work – again, a single song may take years to write.

On a different level, both "The Entertainer" and the lines from "Modern Woman" are rock and roll songs that talk about rock and roll. Does that make them meta-rock?

And as for "Only the Good Die Young," like Virginia is expected to conform to the values of her religion, the entertainer's song is forced to conform to industry standards.