Chasing the American dream used to be a shared ideal among most Americans (whether fresh off the boat or 10th generation). I imagine it looked a little different for everybody, but typically it was seeking to make a life for yourself through the job opportunities America had to offer. Plenty of people made good lives for themselves and their families this way. Today, the American dream looks a bit different. For people immigrating overseas it might be the same old dream, depending on where they’re coming from. For those who have been in America for a while, the American dream seems to be less of making a sustainable life for your family and more of climbing the corporate ladder. Climbing the corporate ladder may get your family a better life, but it seems to be the method that people focus on rather than the goal of a good life. Nowadays, the American dream is probably a lot more diverse in people’s minds than what it used to be, but this is the societal vibe I’m getting on what we are “supposed” to be aspiring towards.
In the song American Dream, Jon illustrates the corporate life as and image of greed and monotony. He describes it as something that can consume your life and become what you live and breathe. I don’t think the message he’s trying to send is that we shouldn’t work for big companies ever because they’re all evil. I think the point is that there’s more to life than living for the “company goal”. Your job is your job, not your life. Ecclesiastes says we should love what we do, which is great, but it doesn’t say anything about living what we do. “Is it true would you do what I want you to, if I show up with the right amount of bling? Like a puppet on a monetary string. Maybe we’ve been caught singing red, white, blue, and green, but that ain’t my American dream.” I feel the bridge here sums up well his views on the state of those who live for their vocation. Setting up a great life for your family is a wonderful, ambitious, and respectable thing to do. However, I would argue that if you’re living your life for the company and letting that steal your time from your family, and even yourself, you’re probably pulling your family apart.
The song starts with a pretty neat intro that sets the hectic pace of the song. I think this is supposed to reflect the hectic nature of getting too caught up in your business life. Then as the first verse comes in, with the themes mentioned previously (greed and living for the company), the fast paced feel to the music continues, but sets into a simple and monotonous rhythm. The pre-chorus kicks in by mixing up the instrumental part a bit and getting towards his thoughts of this new-age American dream. “I want out of this machine, it doesn’t feel like freedom.” I love the reference of the corporate world as a machine, and I think the repetitive guitar part in the verse is supposed to reflect the machine part of the corporate life. The corporate life isn’t for everyone, and I think the idea of it drove Jon mad. I think he’s a very free and expressive person, who lives to spread love, song, and God’s awe-some nature.
In the chorus he says, “I’m tired of fighting for just me.” I think this could refer to people getting so lost in their own “American dream” that they stop living for the original goal of a good life for the family and start living for themselves and their standing in their business life. This could easily be taken as him not wanting to devote so much time to bettering his life as opposed to the lives of others. If that’s the line’s intent, I’m fine with it. I think there may be a little more here though. I think he feels as though the corporate race took his focus off of God and placed it on worldly aspirations. He, like many others, and myself, wish to devote all sorts of energy to God and to doing his work. We also get frustrated when such less important things manage to steal our focus from the main purpose of our existence. The corporate life isn’t for everyone, and it isn’t inherently a bad thing. I think it’s just another reason that we as fallible humans need the lesson of keeping focus on the main thing, and another reason why this song is so relatable.
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