#SongLyricSunday July 4

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Our host Jim Adams for Song Lyric Sunday has given us the weekly prompt of “Any American music which is any song played by an American group“. That is is a wide range of choices.

Take some time to read the posts of other bloggers who respond to this music challenge, and even better, read as many of them as you are able to as you will probably find many enjoyable songs and it is quite possibly that you will learn a thing or two. Also feel free to offer up your suggestion to this week’s prompt.

Here are the “rules”:
• Post the lyrics to the song of your choice, whether it contains the prompt words or not.  If it does not meet the criteria, then please explain why you chose this song.
• Please try to include the songwriter(s) – it’s a good idea to give credit where credit is due.  Your post can be as long or as short as you want it to be.
• Make sure you also credit the singer/band and if you desire you can provide a link to where you found the lyrics.
• Link to the YouTube video, or pull it into your post so others can listen to the song.
• Ping back to this post or place your link in the comments section below.
• Read at least one other person’s blog, so we can all share new and fantastic music and create amazing new blogging friends in the process.
• Feel free to suggest future prompts.
• Have fun and enjoy the music.

In addition to being Song Lyric Sunday it is also the 4th of July. This week’s prompt is about America Music so my goal was to attempt to find a song about America from an Iconic American Group.

Well, there were lots of choices but I settled on “America” by Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel knowns simply as Simon & Garfunkel. The song was part of the group’s 1968 album called “Bookends”. That album contained a number of memorable hits including “Mrs. Robinson”. That song is often associated with the 1967 film The Graduate featuring Dustin Hoffman and Anne Bancroft. Ironically the film’s soundtrack does not include the full version from the LP album.

The song is about a young couple hitchhiking across America trying to figure out no only their life but our country. Many music critics claim the song which was written by Paul Simon to be his finest song lyrics. I do believe that can be debated.

Here are the lyrics to 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 pies
And we 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 hitchhike 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 bowtie 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

Here is a video of Simon and Garfunkel performing the song at Central Park Concert in NYC on September 1, 1981 in front of an estimated 500,00 fans.

Happy 4th of July America! Hope you celebrate part of your day with music. Next week the prompt is Bugs and Insects.