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Back in the USA

"Back in the U.S.A."
Single by Chuck Berry
B-side "Memphis, Tennessee"
Released June 1959
Format 7" single
Genre Rock and roll
Label Chess 1729
Writer(s) Chuck Berry
Chuck Berry singles chronology
"Almost Grown"
(1959)
"Back in the U.S.A."
(1959)
"Broken Arrow"
(1959)
"Back in the USA"
Single by Linda Ronstadt
from the album Living in the USA
B-side "White Rhythm & Blues"
Released 1978
Format 7" vinyl
Genre Rock
Length 3:02
Label Asylum
Writer(s) Chuck Berry
Producer(s) Peter Asher
Linda Ronstadt singles chronology
"Tumbling Dice"
(1978)
"Back in the USA"
(1978)
"Ooh Baby Baby"
(1978)

"Back in the U.S.A." is a song written by Chuck Berry that was released in 1959 and was a top 40 hit. A cover version in 1978 by Linda Ronstadt was also a hit.

Chuck Berry first issued the song on Chess Records in 1959 as a single which reached number 37 in the Billboard Hot 100. It was later included on Berry's 1962 album More Chuck Berry. The song's lyrics were supposedly written based upon Berry returning to the USA following a trip to Australia and witnessing the living standards of Australian Aborigines: as Berry's biography on the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame website states, with "Back in the U.S.A" "Berry saluted such everyday pleasures as the drive-ins and corner cafes 'where hamburgers sizzle on an open grill night and day/Yeah, and a jukebox jumping with records like in the U.S.A.'"

Alan Dale issued the song in Australia on Colombia in 1959 as a single along with a version of Bo Didley's 'Crackin' Up' (45-DO-4086).

"Back in the U.S.A" was afforded its greatest impact when Linda Ronstadt remade the song for her 1978 album Living in the USA (the album's title coming from the song's lyrics). Ronstadt had heard the Berry original while being driven around Los Angeles by Eagles member Glenn Frey who had once been in her band, the track being on a "home-made" cassette Frey had playing in his tape deck. Ronstadt recalls that she'd been reminding Frey "'how we used to sit around the Troubadour bar and go: Oh it's so horrible and I can't get a record deal. We were so broke and so miserable and we'd feel so sorry for ourselves and we were so precious about it.' Then all of a sudden I looked at him and I went: 'Boy, life's really tough. We're going off to ski [at Aspen] with all this money in our pockets, we're going to have a good time, and we've got great music on the tape player.' Just then 'Back in the U.S.A. came on and I went: 'Boy that would be a great song to sing. I think I'll do that one.'"


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