As a foreigner and if I don’t know what is the “American Tune”, I will probably think about it as the American National Anthem because of the title—the tune for the all american citizens. The title of the song is very direct and also sounds very powerful. After you listen the song, however, you will realize that it actually is a pop-folk song, and it does not sound loud at all. No any wind instrument and no orchestra, just a male singer with his guitar. On the Wikipedia, it even says the genre of the “American Tune” is soft rock, and I am pretty sure that the American National Anthem is not a rock song. But, why a pop music song can be called “American Tune”? And what is the story behind it?
The video of “American Tune” in 1975 by Paul Simon: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AE3kKUEY5WU
Before we take a deep adventure about the “American Tune”, let us get some basic information. “American Tune” is one of the songs in the third solo studio album—There Goes Rhymin’ Simon—by Paul Simon. Paul Simon is an American singer-songwriter, guitarist and musician, and he born on October 13, 1941 in a Hungarian Jewish family. The album released on May 5, 1973, and it recorded from September 1972 to January 1973. Paul Simon wrote the lyrics of the “American Tune”, and if you listen the song carefully, you can distinguish the melody is taken from St Matthew Passion by Johann Sebastian Bach. Or actually we should say the melody is based on the Christian Passion hymn “O Sacred Head, Now Wounded” by Paul Gerhardt, and its a reworking melody of the earlier secular love song “Mein G’müt its mir verwirret” composed by Hans Leo Hassler. The lyrics is mainly used the first-person pronoun, such as I and we. So, it seems that Paul Simon tells a story about himself and many other american people through the song—“American Tune”.
The lyrics contains four verses, and it is very obvious that the song is about a dark and kind of depressed reflection, rather than a happy song. For example, Paul Simon wrote “Many’s the time I’ve been mistaken” at the beginning of the song, “I don’t have a friend who feels at ease” and “I wonder what went wrong, I can’t help it” in the second verse, “And I dream I was dying” in the third verse and “You can’t be forever blessed” in the verse 4. However, it is also very interesting that in the lyrics, Paul Simon also presented his optimistic side and kept saying “It’s all right, it’s all right.” Was he really alright? Could he be able to recover the bad memory? The answer is maybe, but also could be maybe not…
After we know the background information and the lyrics of the song, can we tell what is the subject that Paul Simon talks in “American Tune”? The answer is absolutely yes. In the third verse of the lyrics, Paul mentions that, “the Statue of Liberty (see below) sailing away to sea”, and everyone knows the Statue of Liberty is the symbol of the United State. Therefore, this song is a meditation about the political things happened in the early 1970s for all american people and the America.
From the 1960s, the US government deiced to bring more armies and weapons into the Vietnam War and terribly, widely attacked the Vietnamese people over the decade. The war not only caused millions of the Vietnamese people passed away and destroyed their homes and lands, but it also made a great numbers of the US soldiers lose their lives and led a lot of american people to have a very hard, confusion and struggle time. The US government gained condemnation from other countries, organizations and many US citizens, even though the original goal is to assist French government to make Vietnam become a free country. Eventually, America lost the war, and the aftereffects became extremely painful for both the US government and the Vietnam. For instance, the economy in US grew very weakly and even had the Great inflation in 1970s after excessively supporting the military for the decades.
Iconic photos of the Vietnam War: http://www.cnn.com/2014/06/19/world/gallery/iconic-vietnam-war-photos/index.html
Under this circumstance and atmosphere, Paul Simon wrote “American Tune” to express his and many american people’s emotions and attitudes. It is a very quiet song, and it performs in a very peaceful way. In my opinion, this incredible quietness shows the heavily struggle and weariness between the feelings of hopeless/depression and hopefulness. Also, the melody of St Matthew Passion states the painfulness and darkness since the initial tune depicts the crucifixion and the suffering of Jesus Christ. However, why Paul Simon decided to use a religious-related (Christian) tune to sing this song, even though he raised in a Jewish family? Why he cannot composer a new, good melody or use a well-known American folksong melody to cooperate the title “American Tune”?
Besides St Matthew Passion’s melody is very famous and almost every person knows it and the story about the tune, it also presents Paul’s political points. Firstly, the biblical meaning of the crucifixion is similar to the suffering of the american people’s lives in the 1970s. Also, his optimistic thought is identical to the resurrection of Jesus’ death as well. Secondly, since Paul born in a Hungarian Jewish family, I assume he is also a jewish. As many people know, lots of scholars consider St Matthew Passion is an Anti-Semitism piece. However, the way Paul Simon used the tune in this situation (about the war and even the races) is somehow to prove the ideal and original American politics’ views—everyone is freedom and equal, and it testifies that everything should blend and mix very well in music and also in the political world.
It is very difficult to avoid any bias in the politics, and it becomes even hard when the music associated with the politics. For example, in William Robin’s article—Colin Kaepernick and the radical uses of “The Start-Spangled Banner” and Anthony Tommasini’s article—Trump Is Wrong if He Thinks Symphonies Are Superior, we can see the controversies always come suddenly through very detailed lyrics, words or even just one phrase. I totally agree with Anthony’s opinion that the symphonies are not superior because every type of the music forms is equally important and significant. However, I think it is a little implausible to make the connection between the music and politics in this case, because Trump is not a professional musician. He might regarded the symphonies as a great type of the music since the orchestra music is normally loud, huge and superior for the audiences. Especially for the amateur audiences, they do think music in this way. Thus, Trump may not put bias into the statement “we write symphonies”, even though he says many bad stuffs sometimes.
Overall, politics influences the music broadly, and Paul Simon’s expresses his attitudes and moods about it clearly in “American Tune”. Also, based on the lyrics and the melody, he builds a good connection between the music and the politics and avoids bias in his music. Therefore, “American Tune” becomes a very popular song over the decades. If you ask me is the “American Tune” an American, even though the melody is not from the American? I will say yes, because this is the song talking about the story in the American and American people in the 1970s.
Hey Jiaqi,
Great blogpost! I really enjoyed your unique yet detailed topic and how you explained it. I think it was a really cool idea that you were able to write about America as a non American, especially something that embracing the ideas and politics of America so much. It was really interesting to hear your opinions on this topic. I loved how you incorporated just enough but not too much background information about the song, its time period and the artist.
One thing that might have helped for me while reading it was the organization. I sometimes felt that I wanted to go back to read certain things after reading another, which could have been helped by a more clear order and having transitions that led into them.
Otherwise, I thought it was a thoughtful and very interesting blogpost! Great job again!