"America" lyrics
"America"
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
Thanks to Tim for correcting these lyrics.
Writer(s): Paul Simon
"America" was inspired by a five-day trip Paul Simon made in September 1964. He started from Saginaw, Michigan. According to Michigan Live, local DJ Bob Dyer said, "... he had to see what a city named Saginaw looked like. Apparently, he liked it; he wrote 'America' while he was here, including that line about taking four days to hitchhike from Saginaw."
Paul Simon's then-girlfriend, Kathy Chitty, is mentioned in these lyrics which are, actually, prose.
In 2014, Rolling Stone magazine reader's poll ranked this song the group's fourth best song.
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- Simon & Garfunkel Lyrics
album:
"The Concert In Central Park" (1982)
album: "Old Friends: Live On Stage" (2004)