I Like America & America Likes Me

Album: A Brief Inquiry into Online Relationships (2018)
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Songfacts®:

  • Here, The 1975 lead singer Matthew Healy speaks out about the anxieties of modern life, especially gun violence in America.

    Kids don't want rifles, they want Supreme
    No gun required!
    Oh, will this help me lay down?
    We're scared of dying, it's fine
    What's a fiver?
    Being young in the city


    Matty Healy explained to Pitchfork that throughout the world people are the same, they may have different personalities, but everybody has similar worries. "Everyone's just scared of dying!," he said.
  • The song title is not included in the lyrics, Instead it comes from a piece of performance art by German conceptual artist Joseph Beuys. In 1974 he locked himself in a room in the René Block Gallery at 409 West Broadway with a wild coyote. Over a period of three days, the coyote, which was originally hostile, grew tolerant of Bueys and the pair learned to live with one another. At the end of the three days, Beuys hugged the coyote. He called his work "I Like America & America Likes Me."
  • Healy's voice is heavily Auto-Tuned, which he explained to Pitchfork was because he wanted to pay homage to the SoundCloud rap genre.

    "Not only does it tune your voice, it stops it, compresses it, punctuates it. It turns it into an instrument," Healy explained regarding the appeal of Auto-Tune. "But also, this song started out as an homage to SoundCloud rap. It's the sound of America to me at the moment. I was almost going to put it out with just mumble lyrics, to see how far I could take it."

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