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Jay+And+The+Americans - Only+in+america

From the liner notes to _The Brill Building Sound_:

    At the height of the civil rights furor, Barry Mann wrote a song for
  the Drifters, one he felt strongly about since it incorporated a lot of
  personal feelings in lyrics such as 'Only in America / Land of
  opportunity / Can they save a seat in the back of the bus just for me /
  Only in America / Where they preach the Golden Rule / Will they start to
  march when my kids want to go to school'.  To Mann's dismay, Leiber &
  Stoller told him to rewrite it along less controversial lines.  'They
  said there's no way the Drifters could do this song,' he recalls.  'No
  one would play it'.  At this point, record sales mattered less to him
  than voicing his message, but out of respect to Leiber & Stoller he went
  ahead and turned the song into this flag-waving anthem.  Stoller later
  told the authors of _Behind The Hits_ that the Drifters were afraid of
  recording the revamped version.  'They thought they'd get too much flak.
  It would be too controversial.  We felt it would make a strong ironic
  statement -- that it would be more effective -- four black guys singing
  aoubt what was obviously *not* taking place.'

    Resigned to the fact that the song was more suited to a whitebread pop
  group, Leiber & Stoller brought it to Jay & The Americans [some sources
  indicate that they used the same backing track].  It came out as the
  follow-up to their first hit, 'She Cried'.  A decade later, Mann
  confessed, 'It just makes me cry now.  It would've been a more honest
  song but I wasn't strong enough to stick to my guns.'


                           "Only In America"
                    (Leiber / Stoller / Mann / Weil)

	E        D        E        D 
	/ / / /  / / / /  / / / /  / / / /

Verse 1:

	 E        D 
	Only ..
	 E              D 
	Can a ..
	E              D          E
	Go to ..
	A         G 
	Only ..
	A              G 
	Can a ...
	A                G         A 
	Get a ..

Chorus:

	D        A/C#
	Only ..
	 D          A/C#
	Land ..
	 Bm            F#m            G          A        [1: B  2: E, to coda]
	Would ..

Verse 2:

	Only ..
	Can a ..
	Take a ..
	Only ..
	Could ...
	 A               G              A           B           E
	Could ..

Instrumental break:

	(chords as per Verse 1)

[repeat chorus]

Coda:

	  E        D                    E
	(Only in ..
	(Only in ..
	(Only ..America  [repeat to fade]


-- another ace 60's tab from Andrew Rogers