Here's the scoop on our version of America the Beautiful. We had a gig the weekend after the 9/11 attacks, and everyone who showed up was pretty much stunned, including us. We figured we should do something, so we sang America the Beautiful, and everyone loved it. So we kept playing it, and the more we played it, the more it began to morph into a kind of Tex-Mex number. I took some Spanish classes, and with the help a native Spanish speaker who ran the youth education at my church, I wrote the Spanish version.

We recorded it in 2005, before all the stink about singing patriotic songs only in English. For years, we played America the Beautiful in Spanish to all kinds of crowds, city folk, farmers, gay, straight, Republican and Democrat, and everybody, and I mean everybody loved it. Nobody cared until somebody (I still don't know who) declared that this was "a problem."

We never intended to piss anybody off, or empower anybody for that matter. It was just a pretty song that made everybody feel a little bit better a few days after the Twin Towers fell. Here are the lyrics:

América Linda
Tu firmamento del azul. (Your blue sky)
Tus bosques muy sombríos. (Your somber forests)
Sembrados tan magníficos. (Cropland so magnificent)
Montañas muy bravíos. (Mountains so bold.)

América, América,
Con tu fraternidad. (With your brotherhood)
Del mar al mar, él dios ha, (From sea to sea, the Lord has)
Creado libertad. (Created liberty.)

More about us: In 1996, Jim won first prize from the Virginia Organization of Composers and Lyricists for his song What Else is Kindness For. The next year, he was a runner-up in American Songwriter Magazine's lyric contest for The Wisdom of my Youth, which also received an honorable mention at the Song Spree III lyric competition. In 2001, he took the silver in the prestigious Mid Atlantic Songwriting Contest for God Gives You What You Need in the category of inspirational song.

Jake’s song I’m Afraid of Everything was chosen to be included on the 2002 Oasis CD sampler. His C.M. Bohnstedt was one of 20 finalists in the national Just Plain Folks 2003 song contest for Traditional Music. Jake was also selected by Tom Gala to record a CD of original songs at the Mermaid Inn. The CD was released 1998.

Here is our official blurb.

King Platypus is Philadelphia’s premier Zen, world-beat, show tune, surf-folk fusion band. Formed in 1996 by songwriters Jim Harris and Jake Michael, we have played venues including the Mermaid Inn, Steel City, Smithbridge Winery, the Folk Factory People's Choice Concert, and more bookstores and coffee shops than we will ever remember. Our web page is www.kingplatypus.net and our CDs are sold through www.cdbaby.com, where you can also sample our music.

In 1996, Jim won first prize from the Virginia Organization of Composers and Lyricists for his song What Else is Kindness For. The next year, he was a runner-up in American Songwriter Magazine's lyric contest for The Wisdom of my Youth, which also received an honorable mention at the Song Spree III lyric competition. In 2001, he took the silver in the prestigious Mid Atlantic Songwriting Contest for God Gives You What You Need in the category of inspirational song.

Jake’s song I’m Afraid of Everything was chosen to be included on the 2002 Oasis CD sampler. His C.M. Bohnstedt was one of 20 finalists in the national Just Plain Folks 2003 song contest for Traditional Music. Jake was also selected by Tom Gala to record a CD of original songs at the Mermaid Inn. The CD was released 1998.

Jim lives in the Mt. Airy section of Philadelphia, not far from where he was born. He is active in community affairs and Animal Rights. Jake, a native of Whitley County Indiana, lives in West Chester, PA. He is an environmental planner and helps coordinates volunteer work in Philadelphia's Wissahickon Park