For many of us, the United States means music, progress, hope.

Illustration: Nathalie Lees/The Guardian 

 My first sense of the US’s allure came when I was a four-year-old, watching the glorious educational TV show Sesame Street, and being spellbound by its multiracial cast, and the way it offered a much more thrilling take on letters and numbers – and life – than the staid fare we got from the BBC and ITV. 

A little later on, I can recall a few lucky childhood friends returning from American holidays – in Florida, usually – coming home with comics and sweets that increased my sense of the States as a beguiling land of dreams. And then came the clincher: a great mountain of music, which still sits at the heart of my understanding of what the US is, and how it may survive its current crisis.

 By John Harris, continue reading.