LOS ANGELES, CA- I was initially drawn into Tom Siletto’s “american pride” by his voice. There’s a delicateness to his tenor that immediately suited the sparse, folk-leaning nature of the song, an intimacy that made me want to lean into the recording rather than simply let it play in the background.
Then something happened in my left speaker.
What sounded almost like a mono field recording suddenly appeared in the mix, enough that I actually paused the song to make sure what I was hearing was coming from the recording and not somewhere else in the room. It was a small moment, but it changed the way I was listening. “american pride” had gotten my attention.
Of course, a song called “american pride” comes with certain expectations. That title can send your mind in any number of directions before Tom Siletto has sung a word. But instead of offering some grand statement about America, Siletto starts talking about American dreams, football teams and someone telling him that he just doesn’t get it. Then comes the phrase “cultural difference,” and suddenly I found myself listening to the lyrics a little more carefully. Eventually, I pulled them up on the YouTube page and started reading along.
And I’m glad I did, because I don’t think “american pride” is necessarily a song that reveals itself completely on the first listen.
Siletto, who describes his sound as “swag folk,” wrote the song about falling in love from a distance and navigating cultural differences within that relationship. Those ideas are certainly there. He surrounds himself with distinctly American imagery, singing about being “hometown, home team” while weaving red, white and blue into the song without turning those colors into an overt patriotic statement.
But the longer I sat with “american pride,” the more I wondered exactly what kind of pride Siletto is singing about.
Is it really American pride? Or is “American” simply the adjective he has attached to something much more universal: stubbornness?
There is plenty of stubbornness between these two people. They stop calling. They stop visiting. They stop saying what they mean. They argue about where the fault lies while seemingly understanding that neither one of them is going to completely surrender their version of what happened. By the end, when Siletto essentially acknowledges that they can each tell their own side of the story, “american pride” begins sounding less like an explanation and more like an excuse.
That ambiguity is where the song started sticking with me.
There are other little lyrical details that reveal themselves with repeated listens. Siletto sings about wearing secondhand jeans and admits that he “stole your aesthetic,” suggesting that despite all these supposed cultural differences, pieces of this other person have already become pieces of him. Later, he compares that person to sand in his shoes: something he wants gone but knows will probably remain with him forever.
That is a pretty effective image for a relationship you’re supposedly finished with.
Musically, “american pride” never needs to become enormous to make its point. Siletto’s delicate tenor remains its anchor, while the production leaves enough space around him for those unusual textures and little sonic intrusions to register. There’s a casualness to the recording that fits his “swag folk” description surprisingly well. It feels vulnerable without sounding fragile, relaxed without becoming emotionally detached.
For me, though, “american pride” works because I’m still not entirely convinced I know exactly what Siletto means by American pride.
Maybe it is cultural. Maybe it is geographical. Maybe it’s the particular kind of confidence and stubbornness he associates with where he comes from. Or maybe two people watched a relationship slowly fall apart and needed something larger than themselves to blame for why neither was willing to cross the distance.
There are a lot of ways to hear it.
And sometimes the songs that leave the longest impression are the ones that don’t tell you which interpretation is right.
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