The secret genius of Simon and Garfunkel’s ‘America’, explained by Gerry Beckley of America
When most people concentrate on the acrimonious nature of their relationship, this negative characteristic can often get in the way of the utter brilliance of Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel. Not only were they folk heroes but musical pioneers in a much broader sense, and while many of their albums are worthy of praise, 1968’s Bookends makes a very assertive claim to be their finest effort. It captures the very artistic and penetrating nature of their work.
Notably, when the album arrived, despite Simon struggling with writer’s block and writing most of the material alongside John Simon – of no relation – they had been enjoying immense heights. While they broke through earlier in the decade, Sounds of Silence and Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme, and their timeless 1967 soundtrack for the comedy-drama The Graduate had taken them to new cultural and commercial climes.
As the greats do, the duo continued to refine their work. Bookends represented a break from their early chapters’ more directly folk-oriented work into something more experimental and cerebral. Bringing into focus just how masterful it was in light of the era, it is a concept album that, in a homage to William Blake, traces the journey from childhood to old age.
Mirroring Blake’s Songs of Innocence and its companion, Songs of Experience, side of one of the album explores the stages of life, with the theme aptly bookending it. The lyrics contain topics familiar to us all, such as youth, relationships, old age, and the complexity of mortality. Following it, side two primarily consists of singles and unused material from The Graduate soundtrack.
Bookends is a near-faultless record that pushed folk rock forward and displayed just how impactful a concept album could be. Next time you’re thinking of the majesty that Pink Floyd enacted with 1973’s The Dark Side of the Moon, be reminded that it was Simon and Garfunkel who perfected the recipe half a decade earlier.
One of the highlights of side one is ‘America’. It is undoubtedly one of his greatest-ever conceptions written by Simon and featuring stirring vocals from both men. It details a pair of young lovers hitchhiking across the many sprawling US vistas, searching for something akin to the American Dream. Entrenched in reality, it was inspired by Simon’s own experiences on a road trip with ex-girlfriend Kathy Chitty and distils how tangible the essence of Bookends is, with the line “And walked off to look for America,” outlining the literal and figurative meaning of the song.
Even Garfunkel, Simon’s perennial rival, has outlined how they were in unison when recording the track. He told Paul Zollo in 1993 that they both had “the identical soul at that moment” and were the “same college kid, striking out.”
As the track and album were instrumental in reviving singer-songwriters and folk rock acts that emerged in the 1970s, many have cited their brilliance. One of the most famous to have risen in part thanks to Bookends was Gerry Beckley of the fittingly named trio, America, a group who also bottled the essence of their native land with songs such as ‘A Horse With No Name’ and ‘Ventura Highway’. The latter was so impactful it is said Prince took the name ‘Purple Rain’ from one of its lines.
As a keen fan of the album, Beckley knows it inside out and is particularly fond of ‘America’ because of Simon’s pioneering approach to the lyrics. He explained to Songfacts: “The entire song is prose. There’s not one line that rhymes, and I will tell some of the best songwriters you’ve ever met that particular element, and you can see them stop and go through it in their head. We’re oblivious to that being an ingredient because we’re so involved in the story. You’re not sitting there going, ‘That didn’t rhyme, wait a second.’ It’s not an issue.”
Beckley is right; using only prose for lyrics is a challenging feat to accomplish in music, and that’s what makes Simon’s work on ‘America’ so genius. It’s a move fans have seldom seen across the musical timeline. Even Bob Dylan’s sprawling epic ‘Murder Most Foul’, which delves deep into the past, utilises rhyme.
Listen to ‘America’ by Simon and Garfunkel below.
