Format 7" Length 3:45 | Genre Soft rock | |
B-side "One Man's Ceiling Is Another Man's Floor" Released November 9, 1973 (1973-11-09) Recorded 1972
Morgan Studios, London | ||
"American Tune" is a song by the American singer-songwriter Paul Simon. It was the third single from his third studio album, There Goes Rhymin' Simon (1973), released on Columbia Records. The song, a meditation on the American experience, is based on a melody line from a chorale from Johann Sebastian Bach's St Matthew Passion. The song reached number 35 on the Billboard Hot 100.
Contents
Lyrics
The lyrics offer a perspective on the American experience; there are references to struggle, weariness, hard work, confusion, and homesickness. The bridge conveys a dream of death and of the Statue of Liberty "sailing away to sea". The song ends with an assertion that "you can't be forever blessed" before the lyrics return to the idea of work, tiredness, and resignation.
Music
The tune is based on a melody line from a chorale from Johann Sebastian Bach's St Matthew Passion, itself a reworking of an earlier secular song, "Mein G'müt ist mir verwirret," composed by Hans Leo Hassler. The melody used for "American Tune" can be heard quite distinctly in part 1, number 21 and number 23 and in part 2, number 54. The melody to "American Tune" is practically identical to that of "Mein G'müt ist mir verwirret" and "O Sacred Head, Now Wounded," although Simon expanded on the tune.
Live performances and covers
Eventually it became a concert favorite, both for Simon and in reunion concerts with Simon's former singing partner, Art Garfunkel. The song appears on several of Simon's solo live albums and on Simon and Garfunkel's post-breakup live albums, most famously The Concert in Central Park. The song has been covered by many artists, notably Willie Nelson, Dave Matthews, Eva Cassidy, Ann Wilson, Gretchen Peters, the Indigo Girls, the Starland Vocal Band, Keane, Glen Phillips, Darrell Scott, Storyhill, Jerry Douglas, Kurt Elling, Shawn Colvin, Allen Toussaint and Curtis Stigers. Mandy Patinkin also recorded the song in Yiddish on his 1998 album Mamaloshen.
Simon performed the song live on November 18, 2008, during the airing of The Colbert Report, and on September 11, 2015, to close out the last show of the first week of The Late Show with Stephen Colbert Video Here.