In the original stage version, Anita – the
girlfriend of Bernardo, the leader of the Sharks, and the most important female character after Maria – praises
America while a fellow
Puerto Rican, Rosalia, supports Puerto Rico.[1] This version of the song deprecates the island and highlights the positive qualities of American life ("I'll drive a
Buick through
San Juan/If there's a road you can drive on"). The irony of this supposedly pro-American number, however, is its vibrantly
Hispanic musical style, with
Latin percussion, complex
cross-rhythm and
Spanish guitar.
In the
1961 film version, Anita, played by
Rita Moreno, still sings in favor of the United States while Bernardo, played by
George Chakiris, replies with corresponding criticisms of America and American ethnic
prejudice, especially against Puerto Ricans ("Life is alright in America/If you're all White in America"). Some of the original song's disparagement was removed. In 2004, this version finished at No. 35 in
AFI's 100 Years...100 Songs survey of top tunes in American cinema.
The alternating bars of 6 8 (six eighth-notes in two groups of three) with 3 4 (three quarter-notes) (similar to a
guajira) is a distinctive characteristic of the song. This rhythm has been called both a
hemiola and a
habanera but is not really either. The two bar types alternate and are not superposed, as in a hemiola. The alternation is comparable with the "
Habanera" from "
Carmen", but "America" lacks the distinctive characteristic underlying rhythm of the habanera form.
Stephen Sondheim claims that
Bernstein returned from a holiday in
Puerto Rico and told him he had come across a wonderful dance rhythm called Huapango which gave him the idea for the song. Many years later, a friend of Sondheim's found, in a box of Bernstein's papers, an unproduced ballet called Conch Town which contained the tune. Sondheim concludes that Bernstein had invented the story of finding the rhythm on holiday simply so he could reuse an old tune.[4]
The composer's tempo instruction is "Tempo di
Huapango".
Cover versions
An instrumental version, with the signature rhythm reduced to a uniform 4 4, was released in 1963 by Herb Alpert's Tijuana Brass on their album Volume 2.[5]
In 1968,
The Nice, featuring
Keith Emerson, covered an instrumental version of "America" as the band's second single. This version had the main theme playing against a straight 4 4 beat, also including pieces of
Dvořák's New World Symphony, then changing in the middle to 6 8 for improvised guitar and organ solos. At a July 7, 1968, concert at the
Royal Albert Hall, the band controversially burned an American flag after performing the song.[7] Emerson later folded the melody into a great many of his jams including the finale medley on
Emerson, Lake & Palmer's 1992-1993 tours, which also used musical themes from "
Blue Rondo à la Turk", a jazz standard composed by
Dave Brubeck. An example of this medley can be found on the album Live at the Royal Albert Hall.
The English psychobilly band
King Kurt covered this song on an EP called America, released in 1986.
A version of this song was performed by the in-house band and singers to introduce a 2012 episode of the Polish version of
Name That Tune, Jaka to Melodia?, complete with a set of dancers.
In 2011, the song was covered by the cast of musical comedy television series Glee in the fifth episode of the
third season, "
The First Time" (aired on November 8), with character
Santana Lopez (portrayed by
Naya Rivera) on the lead.[9] A minor controversy was caused over using the film version of the song, while a high school would normally use the stage version.
In 2003, the song was used in advertisements for
Admiral Insurance though with different lyrics.
In 1994, the song was the unofficial anthem at the
1994 FIFA World Cup in the United States and was sung by the
Three Tenors (Plácido Domingo, José Carreras and Luciano Pavarotti) at Dodgers Stadium in Los Angeles to an estimated global TV audience of 1.3 billion viewers. The BBC also used it for its coverage of the World Cup.
A version of the song with truncated lyrics is used in the end credits of the 2018 film Vice.
A
supercut of the musical number, combining the footage of the 1961 and 2021 film versions of the sequence, was edited and uploaded by narrative/documentary filmmaker Max Hechtman to his
YouTube channel on March 13, 2022 and was featured in an article for Collider on "10 Great Movies That Had a Decades-Long Gap Between Them and Their Remake."[13][14]