"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


Lyrics submitted by amgsl500, edited by georgeporter

America Lyrics as written by Paul Simon

Lyrics © Universal Music Publishing Group

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America song meanings
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  • +9
    My Interpretation

    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.

    georgeporteron March 21, 2013   Link

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