Movin' Out (Anthony's Song)

"Movin' Out (Anthony's Song)" is a song written and recorded by Billy Joel. The track details the singer's disgust with the upwardly-mobile bourgeois aspirations of working- and lower-middle-class New Yorkers who take pride in working long hours to afford the outward signs of having "made it". Characters have stereotypically ethnic names (Anthony, Mama Leone, Sergeant O'Leary, Mr. Cacciatore) and blue-collar jobs. Joel considers their rejection of their working-class roots (trading a Chevy for a Cadillac and buying a house in Hackensack, New Jersey) ultimately futile; in the end, the rewards are a "heart attack" or "a broken back". Near the end of the recording is the sound of a car starting up and driving away; the bass player Doug Stegmeyer's 1960s Corvette was used. In the single mix the engine sound was removed.

According to Joel, Anthony isn't a real person, but rather "every Irish, Polish, and Italian kid trying to make a living in the U.S."

"Movin' Out" originally appeared on Joel's 1977 album The Stranger. A live performance of it can be heard on 2000 Years: The Millennium Concert.