In regards to the meaning of this song:
Before a live performance on the EP Five Stories Falling, Geoff states “It’s about the last time I went to visit my grandmother in Columbus, and I saw that she was dying and it was the last time I was going to see her. It is about realizing how young you are, but how quickly you can go.”
That’s the thing about Geoff and his sublime poetry, you think it’s about one thing, but really it’s about something entirely different. But the lyrics are still universal and omnipresent, ubiquitous, even. So relatable. That’s one thing I love about this band. I also love their live performances, raw energy and Geoff’s beautiful, imperfectly perfect vocals. His voice soothes my aching soul.
"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 gone 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
"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 gone 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
Lyrics submitted by amgsl500, edited by georgeporter
America Lyrics as written by Paul Simon
Lyrics © Universal Music Publishing Group
Lyrics powered by LyricFind
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There is still an amazing amount of hope and will in the lyrics; and the lyrics themselve rank and easy five. If only music was stronger it would be one of those great radio songs that you hear once a week 20 years after it was released. The imagery is almost tear-jerking ("City lights lay out before us", "Speeds so fast felt like I was drunk"), and the idea of starting from nothing and just driving and working and denigrating yourself for a chance at being just above poverty, then losing in the end is just painful and inspiring at the same time.
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I think your first comment is closer to being accurate. The singer/song writers state "Millions of eyes can see, yet why am i so blind!? When the someone else is me, its unkind its unkind". I believe hes referring to the girl toying with him and using him. He wants something deeper with her, thats why he allows himself to be as a puppet (even though for her fun and games) as long as it makes her happy. But he knows deep down that she doesnt really want to be serious with him and thats what makes him.
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To me, Kathy is not with Paul in this song.
Paul mentions Kathy and, whilst it might seem like the way he is talking sounds like he's with her, if we delve deeper we could see that she isn't.
Kathy is Paul's lover who he met in England. However, she didn't want to know him when he was famous. In fact, she refused to talk to the media about him and refused to attend the re-opening of the train stop where Simon wrote Homeward Bound. She didn't want to be anything extraordinary. She was ordinary Kathy from round the corner.
Simon, on the other hand, wanted bigger things. He was going back to America (perhaps with Art as it mentions two people in the song) on a train. We can tell he missed Kathy who wasn't with him by the desperate phrases he uses - "Kathy, I'm lost," for example.
Back to my point: Kathy is not with him. This song is in the form of a letter. "Kathy, I sit" is him recounting his travels to her, action by action, in hope that she will respond and be interested.
"I looked at the scenery, she read her magazine." Whilst Simon is on his travels and all the way to America, she is at home, minding her own business, reading a magazine. Nothing special.
"Though I knew she was sleeping," is, to me, the most obvious. Whilst it might seem that she has merely become tired on this trip, what is actually happening (in my head, anyway), is Simon is yearning for her but, due to the time difference, she is sleeping. It is night time in ordinary England for ordinary Kathy but on the way to exciting Michigan, the day is nowhere near over for the thoughtful and almost desperate Paul Simon.
Anyway, that's my interpretation. If you have no idea who Kathy is (I Googled her because she features rather prominently in Simon's writings), then this is a beautiful love song. If you do, I hope you can understand the method to my madness. Even if we don't agree with each other, let's be honest: this is one of the best songs of all time, and we should admire it instead of bickering.
@georgeporter Not sure you're right but it's a really interesting interpretation!
@georgeporter - It's art. It's whatever you see it as. It doesn't belong in a box with a label. It we applied this thought process to everything in our lives, imagine what the world could look like.
@georgeporter I love your interpretation of this. Very plausible and gives the song a whole new meaning. Re your comment on knowing Kathy was sleeping, it may be that she is not hearing him. But as you say, a truly wonderful, tender, haunting, almost resigned but not completely without hope dues to its tenderness, enhanced by his velvet voice, and each snippet of a line is almost a short story in itself. As close to perfection as you can get.
@georgeporter Quoted from Wikipedia: "She was 16 and he was 22 when they began a relationship. Later that year [1964] they visited the U.S. together, touring around mainly by bus".<br /> <br /> Source: Jackson, Laura. Paul Simon: The Definitive Biography, Citadel Press 2004.<br /> <br /> I think your interpretation takes away the real pathos from this song. Just my 2 cents, of course. One of his best songs ever imho.