America is a song performed by American music duo Simon & Garfunkel, which they included on their fourth studio album, Bookends, in 1968. It was produced by the duo and Roy Halee. The song was later issued as the B-side of the single “For Emily, Whenever I May Find Her (live version)” in 1972 to promote the release of the compilation album Simon and Garfunkel’s Greatest Hits. After peaking in the charts in July 1972, the song was switched to the A-side of the single and re-entered the charts in November 1972.
The song was written and composed by Paul Simon, and concerns young lovers hitchhiking their way across the United States, in search of “America”, in both a literal and figurative sense. It was inspired by a 1964 road trip that Simon took with his then-girlfriend Kathy Chitty. The song has been regarded as one of Simon’s strongest songwriting efforts and one of the duo’s best songs. A 2014 Rolling Stone reader’s poll ranked it the group’s fourth-best song.
“America” was inspired by a five-day road excursion Simon undertook in September 1964 with Chitty. Producer Tom Wilson had called Simon, living in London at the time, back to the United States to finalize mixes and artwork for their debut studio album, Wednesday Morning, 3 A.M. Simon, reluctant to leave Chitty, invited her to come with him; they spent five days driving the country together.
Several years later, “America” was among the last songs recorded for Bookends, when production assistant John Simon left Columbia Records, forcing Simon, Garfunkel, and producer Roy Halee to complete the record themselves. In 2004, Bob Dyer, a former disc jockey from Saginaw, Michigan, explained the song’s genesis in an interview with The Saginaw News. According to Dyer, Simon wrote the song while visiting the town in 1966 after Dyer had booked him for Y-A-Go-Go, a concert series hosted by the Saginaw YMCA.
America Lyrics (1972)
Let us be lovers
We’ll marry our fortunes together
I’ve got some real estate
Here in my bag
So we bought a pack of cigarettes
And Mrs. Wagner’s pies
And walked off
To look for America
“Kathy”, I said
As we boarded a Greyhound in Pittsburgh
Michigan seems like a dream to me now
It took me four days
To hitch-hike from Saginaw
“I’ve come to look for America”
Laughing on the bus
Playing games with the faces
She said the man in the gabardine suit
Was a spy
I said, “Be careful
His bow tie is really a camera”
“Toss me a cigarette
I think there’s one in my raincoat”
We smoked the last one
An hour ago
So I looked at the scenery
She read her magazine
And the moon rose over an open field
“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
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