This refers to Bristol, Pennsylvania, as I read in book, after I was grown. I was very young when the song came out. I lived in the southeastern U,S. at the time and assumed that the song must have been about the only Bristol I'd heard of at that time, the one on the border between Virginia and Tennessee. As I got a bit older, I learned that the original, and probably most famous, Bristol is in England, so I then assumed that was surely what the soneg was about. My belief was by then probably reinforced when the "British Invasion" in popular music was in full force. But in the long run I realized that 1961, when this song came out was a bit early for the "British invasion" to have been a significant influence. But it still wasn't until I read that book much later still that I finally realized that both of my guesses has been wrong as to which Bristol this was about.