The Judge
RAVES!
Date: 31/10/13
Simon & Garfunkel - "America" (1968)
Big thanks to my regular correspondent Bill Everatt of Celtica Radio for reminding me of this gem when he played it on his 60s Extra programme on Radio Hafren last week. I haven't been able - even had I wanted to - to get it our of my head since.
A song from S&G's 1968 LP Bookends, it tells of a pair of young lovers travelling across the north east of the USA. But what starts with a sort of idealism and playfulness turns into a form of disillusionment and despair as they near New York and see that - just like the New Jersey Turnpike where they end up counting the cars jamming it - the American Dream, if it had ever existed, had long since been buried under the mundane dross of consumer consumption.
It's possibly Paul Simon's greatest song and, with Roy Halee's co-production and arrangement by the legendary Jimmy Haskell, is a true classic. Enjoy.
