Driving Through Mythical America

Annotation

Pete Atkin, British singer/songwriter, born 22 August 1945 in Cambridge, Cambridgeshire, UK, performed the track "Driving Through Mythical America" (Philips # 6308 070), written by Clive James, which looked at the Kent State killings, weaved together with references to American popular culture: "four students watched the soldiers load and aim...across the set and through the cardboard hills" - so presenting the killings as a surreal Hollywood film set, as the students became part of American mythology. It continued to quote famous film characters, actors, and directors, such as Orsen Welles, John Wayne, Bogart, and Gatsby. The lyrics also focused on the sudden nature of being shot "out of the blue", and that the students never saw it coming.12 Atkin also released the Vietnam War song "All the Dead Were Strangers" on the 1973 album A King at Nightfall, about the My Lai Massacre.Sources1Pete Atkin: Driving Through Mythical America↩2bigother.com: Take off your face wed like to see the mask↩

Annotation by Justin A. Brummer

Lyrics

English: Four students never guessed that they were through / Their history had them covered / Like a gun it hit them like a bolt out of the blue / Too quick to grasp and far too late to run / They crashed and died together in the sun / They were driving through mythical America.... / Four students had to take it in their stride / And couldn't feel the road beneath the wheels of the car / They didn't know they rode inside / Across the set and through the cardboard hills.... / Four students never knew that this was it / There isn't much a target needs to know / Already Babyface had made the hit / And Rosebud was upended in the snow.... / Four students watched the soldiers load and aim / And never tumbled they were on the spot.... / Four students blinked at ordinary skies... / They crashed and died together in the sun / They were driving through mythical America

About the artist

Pete Atkin (born August 22, 1945, in Cambridge, England) is a British singer-songwriter and broadcaster. A Cambridge Footlights performer/writer from 1966, he formed a decades-long songwriting partnership with lyricist Clive James, recording six albums together in the 1970s including "Driving Through Mythical America" (Philips 6308070, 1971), whose title track is the assigned song here. Atkin later had a long BBC Radio career (Light Entertainment Producer 1981, Script Editor 1983, Chief Producer of Radio 4 1986, Head of BBC Network Radio in Bristol from 1989), producing works including the…

Themes

Kent State

In collections

European Songs · Kent / Jackson State Songs · Peace, Protest, & Anti-War Songs [War Years]