A fan favorite in the Paul Simon songbook, this song is a great chance to study Paul Simon’s picking as he performs live. It’s also a fairly rare example of a picking song in 6/8 which makes for an adventure in its own right!
America from S & G’s fourth studio album, Bookends (1968). Produced by the duo and Roy Halee, the song was later issued as a single in 1972 to promote the release of Simon and Garfunkel’s Greatest Hits. The song was written by Paul Simon and concerns young lovers hitchhiking their way across the United States, in search of “America”, in both a literal and figurative sense. It was inspired by a 1964 road trip that Simon took with his girlfriend Kathy Chitty. The song has been regarded as one of Simon’s strongest songwriting efforts and one of the duo’s best songs. A 2014 Rolling Stone reader’s poll ranked it the group’s fourth best song.