America, Communicate With Me

Ray Stevens and "America, Communicate With Me": A Serious Turn in 1970

Ray Stevens is most commonly remembered for his comic recordings, including "Ahab the Arab" (1962), "Gitarzan" (1969), and the novelty hit "The Streak" (1974). But Stevens was always a more versatile artist than his reputation as a comedy specialist suggested, and "America, Communicate With Me" represents one of the clearest demonstrations of that versatility. Released in the summer of 1970, the song was a sincere, socially engaged commentary on the divisions fracturing American society at the height of the Vietnam War era, and it proved that Stevens could command attention and respect in territory far removed from comic novelty.

Ray Stevens was born Harold Ray Ragsdale in Clarkdale, Georgia, in 1939. He had trained formally as a musician, studying at Georgia State University, and his technical skills as a performer, arranger, and producer were considerable. He had signed to Barnaby Records (a subsidiary of CBS) in the late 1960s after earlier stints with Mercury and Monument, and it was on Barnaby that he recorded his most sustained period of creative ambition, including both "Gitarzan" and the more serious material that characterized his work at the turn of the decade.

"America, Communicate With Me" was written by Ray Stevens himself, demonstrating his skills as a songwriter alongside his performance abilities. The song arrived in the wake of such socially conscious pop recordings as Edwin Starr's "War," which was simultaneously climbing the charts in the summer of 1970, and in many ways it participated in the same cultural conversation: a mainstream pop artist using the single format to address the political and social divisions that were tearing American life apart in the aftermath of the Kent State shootings of May 1970 and the intensification of antiwar sentiment across the country.

The single entered the Billboard Hot 100 on July 25, 1970, debuting at position 71. It climbed consistently through the following weeks, moving to 51 in its second week, 48 in its third, 46 in its fourth, and reaching its peak position of 45 during the chart week of August 22, 1970. The song spent a total of six weeks on the Hot 100, a modest run that nonetheless represented meaningful chart success for a recording that was explicitly addressing political and social divisions at a moment when radio programmers were sometimes cautious about such content.

The production of "America, Communicate With Me" is more elaborate than Stevens's comedy recordings, employing a fuller orchestral palette and a more formal production approach that signals the seriousness of the subject matter. Stevens produced the recording himself, demonstrating his understanding that the sonic presentation of a message song needed to match the ambition of its lyric. The arrangement features strings and brass alongside the rhythm section, giving the track a weight and gravity appropriate to its themes.

Radio response to the song was mixed, reflecting the polarized state of American public opinion at the time. Some program directors who might have programmed the record enthusiastically were wary of its explicitly political content, while others saw it as a sincere expression of patriotic concern rather than partisan commentary. Stevens positioned the song carefully to appeal across political lines, framing its message in terms of a desire for national unity and communication rather than taking a specific position on the Vietnam War or any other policy question.

The summer of 1970 was an extraordinarily turbulent moment in American cultural history. The Kent State massacre, the invasion of Cambodia, the escalating antiwar movement, and the growing cultural divisions between younger Americans and the establishment all created a climate in which songs addressing national division found an audience that was both large and emotionally engaged. Stevens's record was one of several that summer to attempt this kind of address, and while it did not achieve the commercial impact of Edwin Starr's "War," it demonstrated that even an artist best known for comedy could contribute meaningfully to the popular-music conversation about American identity and values.

The song also reflected Ray Stevens's genuine artistic range and his refusal to be confined by commercial expectations. Having established himself as a reliable provider of comic entertainment, he used his commercial standing to make a record that took real risks and addressed real concerns, a choice that speaks well of him as an artist and as a citizen.