"Let us be lovers we'll marry our fortunes together"
"I've got some real estate here in my bag"
So we bought a pack of cigarettes and Mrs. Wagner pies
And we walked off to look for America
"Kathy," I said as we boarded a Greyhound in Pittsburgh
"Michigan seems like a dream to me now"
It took me four days to hitchhike from Saginaw
I've gone to look for America
Laughing on the bus
Playing games with the faces
She said the man in the gabardine suit was a spy
I said "Be careful his bowtie is really a camera"
"Toss me a cigarette, I think there's one in my raincoat"
"We smoked the last one an hour ago"
So I looked at the scenery, she read her magazine
And the moon rose over an open field
"Kathy, I'm lost," I said, though I knew she was sleeping
I'm empty and aching and I don't know why
Counting the cars on the New Jersey Turnpike
They've all gone to look for America
All gone to look for America
All gone to look for America
Most people are left empty and aching, even after having found everything so they thought they were searching for. No happiness is ever achieved 100%. You just have to accept whatever comes as close to it as possible and move on from that.
Well stated, shalom. It's been said that a man travels the world over in search of what he needs and returns home to find it. I think we find this song's travelers in the middle of that journey, not quite knowing who they are or where they're headed in life, but taking pleasure in simple vices like hitch-hiking, cigarettes, and junk food, and doing their best to enjoy the ride. It reminds me of my college days when I was in the same place - a life filled with freedom and fun, but a longing for more meaning and purpose that I later found in the very life I had been running from.
This song is done in simple sweetness. A young couple, seeking out life on merely a dream and pocket money. They are Americans, yet this song I believe is a song about the immigration of the heart. Being in a country, where all freedom is around you, a place where many from other people from other countries dream of coming to. This couple decides to go find America within America. The irony is, just as an immigrant from a distant country thinks he longs for a different country to live in, he finds that when he arrives, his happiness is moot. He longs for home, is empty and aching. So is as well, for persons within their own land, when you leave what you know as home, even while seeking out places in your own homeland, the homesickness follows
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