“Well I’m on the Downeaster ‘Alexa’

And I’m cruising through Block Island Sound,

I have chartered a course to the Vineyard

But tonight I am Nantucket bound.’’

Billy Joel, songwriter and singer, in “The Downeaster Alexa’’

The persona is an impoverished fisherman off southern New England who, like many of his fellow fishermen, finds it increasingly hard to make ends meet and keep ownership of his boat, a type known as a downeaster.