I'm pretty confused about this song and how it jives with what I know of Billy Joel.

Are the Bronx and Queens part of the Long Island that he's the spirit of? I've always taken "The Spirit of Long Island" to refer to the whole Nassau county area, yuppies in the suburbs or in mansions on long beach.

I would assume that the character singing is from below 14th street, but I don't know how to reconcile that with Billy's reputation as king of the bourgeoisie. Were the backstreets(a term we'll get to later) he's referring to in the Bronx or something? I appreciate the Bronx in 2019 is kind of the ghetto now that Giulianni cleaned up the part of the city that people care about but I don't know how it compared to Lower Manhattan in 1983(which I understand was basically infested by ninjas and roving gangs, more or less like the worst parts of gotham).

If the Bronx were a sufficiently rough-and-tumble urban area that we could call it the backstreets, why would Billy be associated with it?

If the character is from the Bronx, it raises an even more suspension-of-disbelief shattering question: why would the uptown girl be in the Bronx? Why would anyone ever leave Manhattan if you're already there unless you were slumming it in Jersey to attend a Giants game from the safety of a box seat?

But if the character is from lower manhattan, why is billy joel singing this song at all? Was he just so ahead of the curve he knew his elite listenership would one day thrive there or is it just some sexy urban LARPing?

As for the term "backstreet", I think we all can see the contrast that the BSB have created between what the term once meant and how its perceived today, their influence being massive. Was this perhaps an intentional skewing of definitions by The Man that our hero Marshall Mathers subverted with 8mile? Is Eminem the Billy Joel of the 1990s?

Lastly, is it possible this the most thought anyone(including Billy Joel) has ever put into a Billy Joel song?