America

Album: The Thoughts of Emerlist Davjack (Re-issue) (1967)
Charted: 21
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Songfacts®:

  • This hard-driving, Hammond pumping version of Leonard Bernstein's classic West Side Story show tune was described by keyboardist Keith Emerson as an instrumental protest song against the Vietnam War.
  • Bernstein was so incensed when Emerson burnt the Stars and Stripes at one of The Nice's concerts that he prevented the band putting "America" out as a single in the US.
  • Classical fans will probably recognize that Nice's arrangement includes fragments of Dvorák's "New World Symphony."
  • According to Emerson's biography, the child who can be heard speaking the "America is pregnant with promises and anticipation" lines at the end of the single version, was P. P. Arnold's three-year old son.

Comments: 1

  • Adam from West Palm Beach, FlWhat a great group this was...this has to have been Keith Emerson at his most dynamic in terms of live showmanship...
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