Today is the day before Thanksgiving, so let’s celebrate with a song about the country most of us live in. That makes today’s classic song of the day “America” by Simon & Garfunkel. The song was the third track on side one of the duo’s 1968 album, Bookends.
Bookends was Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel’s fourth album. It peaked at #1 on both the American Billboard Hot 200 albums chart and the UK Albums chart. The album contained three big hits (“Mrs. Robinson,” from the movie The Graduate; “A Hazy Shade of Winter;” and “At the Zoo”) plus a number of album tracks that became classics on their own, such as “Fakin’ It,” “Old Friends,” and “America.” Bookends was produced by Simon, Garfunkel, and Roy Halee, and recorded at New York’s Columbia 52nd Street studios.
The song, “America,” is about a pair of young lovers hitchhiking across the country to “look for America,” in both the literal and figurative sense, observing the country from the window of a Greyhound bus. The song is cinematic in scope yet extremely personal; in the final verse, the songwriter expresses his feelings of ennui to Kathy, his trip mate:
“Kathy, I’m lost”, I said, though I knew she was sleeping
I’m empty and aching and I don’t know why
Counting the cars on the New Jersey Turnpike
They’ve all come to look for America
All come to look for America
All come to look for America
The production starts simple with Paul’s acoustic guitar but eventually builds to a poignant climax accentuated by Paul and Artie’s soaring harmonies and Hal Blaine’s fortissimo cymbal crashes. The accompaniment is something to listen to, moving from soft sympathetic accents to thundering tom fills. (The studio musicians included Wrecking Crew members Larry Knechtel on organ, Joe Osborn on bass, and, of course, the legendary Hal Blaine on those majestic drums.)
“America” is a brilliant and memorable song, expressing the longing and questioning of ’60s youth. Paul Simon, who wrote the song, really tapped into the feelings of a generation. It’s not a “rah rah” jingoistic tune, but rather one that examines the state of the country through the personal thoughts of a single, ultimately lonely couple. Where will the singer and Kathy end up? We’ll never know, but hopefully they both found what they were looking for.
