“America” by Simon and Garfunkel

"America" is Paul Simon's great road movie in miniature, tucked onto Simon & Garfunkel's 1968 album Bookends. He wrote it about a young couple thumbing their way across the United States in search of America, both the place and the idea, and he drew on a 1964 road trip he took with his then-girlfriend, Kathy Chitty.

The duo produced it with Roy Halee, and it's a wistful, drifting thing, their voices twining over a melody that seems to roll along with the highway, restless and hopeful and a little lost all at once. Many rank it among Simon's finest writing and the pair's best work, and a 2014 Rolling Stone readers' poll put it fourth among their songs. It had a second life in 1972, first as a B-side to promote Simon and Garfunkel's Greatest Hits, then flipped to the A-side and back on the charts that November.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.