Once more into the breach of university life, and thus begins the ephemeral season of freshers, where nothing yet is really essential except trying to find your tutorial classroom (Impossible task) and trying to keep yourself out of the North Sea after a night you find yourself glad you cannot quite remember (doubly impossible task, it will always happen—embrace the culture). I personally maintain the view that the beginnings of September should be spent sucking up the last lights of summer in exclusively non-academic hedonism. Ultimately, however you choose to spend the following weeks, one thing which is absolutely vital is an accompanying playlist. This, I mean to provide.
Instead of delving into party anthems and background noise for free-bars and white-lie pres, which, need no introduction, I figured I would take the opportunity to address those whom all of these events are curated for: freshers. Furthermore, I want to acknowledge the melancholy side of the beginning of term, and for a lot, the beginning of university. It can be rough, isolating, unbelievably lonesome and at times utterly unbearable. Sometimes, I think, the only consolation for me in my initial time in St Andrews was the lovely variety of beaches to walk along in a homesick haze. And, of course, one particular work by Simon and Garfunkel.
It was the song ‘America’, a hardly underground tune by the duo, but still, in my opinion, underrated. No song quite portrays the effects of the hope and excitement contained within the prospect of leaving home, nor the quiet and untraceable disappointment that manifests when the results—almost inevitably—tumbles somewhere short of expectations. ‘America’ by Simon and Garfunkel is the faultless encapsulation of that life defining experience, the gap between the home for which you have grown too restless and the idea of something bigger that you have grown in your head.
The song tells the story of Paul Simon and his girlfriend, Kathy, as they leave England, in search of their own idea—America. It begins with a romantic tone, Paul suggesting that they ‘marry their fortunes together’. They, not unlike yours truly, have no fortunes to intertwine other than their own shared dream of the world that awaits them. It’s utterly delusional, of course, but how else are a couple of broke young people expected to have any fun? The song follows them as they hitchhike and bus through Michigan, sharing packs of cigarettes and poking fun at the people around them with bright, youthful arrogance.
Alas, the fun cannot last forever. The last verse illustrates Paul’s revelation as he wakes up in the middle of the night and turns to sleeping Kathy. Something is wrong, but he cannot express it. Watching the cars speed down the New Jersey Turnpike, he comes to the deflating conclusion that they are all chasing the same dream that he and Kathy are, they are all searching for ‘America’, and they all remain fruitless in their endeavours.
It is startling, humbling and terrifying to leave home and see suddenly that although you knew the world was not small you, in ignorant youth, could never have foreseen nor comprehended its true size. Instantaneously, you face a hundred people who all want to do the same things that you do, people who seem more keen, more apt, and more able. What you thought was revolutionary is common knowledge, what you thought was great was mundane, and what you thought was your destiny seems ridiculously unachievable.
There is, however, a consolation that I believe to be folded in the musical outro. St Andrews may not be the place that you imagined it was, but there is still golden opportunity buried here. My advice would be to cast out the dreams and expectations that got you here and embrace the town for what it is—albeit charmingly absurd and at times flat out bizarre. The fun ensues in the unravelling what the reality of like away from home is. You are not a fool for expecting something other than what has been presented to you. You are never as alone as you perceive yourself to be. They’ve all come to look for ‘America’.
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