"America" is a well-known song from the musical

Musical theatre

Musical theatre is a form of theatre combining songs, spoken dialogue, acting, and dance. The emotional content of the piece – humor, pathos, love, anger – as well as the story itself, is communicated through the words, music, movement and technical aspects of the entertainment as an...

 West Side Story. Leonard Bernstein

Leonard Bernstein

Leonard Bernstein August 25, 1918 – October 14, 1990) was an American conductor, composer, author, music lecturer and pianist. He was among the first conductors born and educated in the United States of America to receive worldwide acclaim...

 composed the music; Stephen Sondheim

Stephen Sondheim

Stephen Joshua Sondheim is an American composer and lyricist for stage and film. He is the winner of an Academy Award, multiple Tony Awards including the Special Tony Award for Lifetime Achievement in the Theatre, multiple Grammy Awards, a Pulitzer Prize and the Laurence Olivier Award...

 wrote the song's lyrics. It is well known for using a mixed meter:


In the original stage version of the musical, Anita (the girlfriend of the leader of the Sharks, and the musical's most important female character besides Maria) literally sings the praises of the United States of America

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

, while a fellow Puerto Rican immigrant, Rosalia, sings in favor of Puerto Rico

Puerto Rico

Puerto Rico , officially the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico , is an unincorporated territory of the United States, located in the northeastern Caribbean, east of the Dominican Republic and west of both the United States Virgin Islands and the British Virgin Islands.Puerto Rico comprises an...

.