HOW CAN YOU TELL AN AMERICAN

Questions?
Song Title
HOW CAN YOU TELL AN AMERICAN
Writers
Weill, Anderson
Publisher
HAMPSHIRE HOUSE PUBLISHING CORP. (ASCAP)
Co-Publisher
Non-TRO Affiliate
% Publisher Controls
50%
Territory Controlled
US
Themes/Keywords
America, American, Anger, Broadway, Distinction, Flavors, Government, hate, Problems, Theater
Lyrics
How can you tell an American?
Has he any distinguishing flavor?
Could you spot him on an elephant in Turkestan
Or floating on a raft fifty miles at sea?
As you’d know a single leaf from the sassafras tree,
By its characteristic savor?

It isn’t that he’s short or tall,
It isn’t that he’s round or flat,
It isn’t that he’s civilized or aboriginal,
Nor the head size of his hat.

No, it’s just that he hates and eternally despises
The policeman on his beat and the judge at his assizes,
The sheriff with his warrants and the bureaucratic crew,
For the simple reason that they tell him what to do;
And he insists on eating, he insists on drinking,
He insists on reading, he insists on thinking,
Free of governmental snooping or a governmental plan,
And that’s an American!

How can you tell an American?
Has he any distinguishing notion?
There’s something in the essence of a good champagne
That makes you certain you’re not imbibing rain,
And you won’t succeed in growing an American man
On the opposite side of an ocean.
It isn’t that he’s good or bad,
It isn’t that he’s gay or grim,
It’s only that authority repels him as a lad,
And never goes down with him.

Yes, it’s just that he hates both the guts and the faces
Of the people who can order him and put him through his paces,
The assessor with his taxes or the colonel at review
Or any fool official who can tell him what to do,
And he won’t go to heaven and he won’t go to hell,
And he will not buy and he will not sell,
According to the precepts of a governmental plan,
And that’s an American!



How can you tell an American
When it comes right down to cases?
Is there any one virtue or particular vice
Like a Scotchman’s whiskey or a Chinaman’s rice
Or a Gypsy’s addiction to the moving van
That marks him among the races?

It isn’t that he’s black or white,
It isn’t that he works with tools,
It’s only that it takes away his appetite
To live by a book of rules.

Yes, it’s just that he hates and he damns
All the features of any mortal man
Set above his fellow creatures,
And he’ll hate the undertaker when at last he dies,
If he hears a note of arrogance above him where he lies;
He does his own living, he does his own dying,
Does his loving, does his hating, does his multiplying
Without the supervision of a governmental plan,
And that’s an American!

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