America (West Side Story song) America (West Side Story song) “America” is a song from the musical "West Side Story". Stephen Sondheim wrote the lyrics and Leonard Bernstein composed the music. In the original stage version, Anita – the most important female character after Maria and the girlfriend of Bernardo, the leader of the Sharks – praises America while a fellow Puerto Rican immigrant, Rosalia, supports Puerto Rico. This version of the song deprecates the island and highlights the positive qualities of American life ("I’ll drive a Buick through San Juan/If there’s a road you can drive on"). The irony of this supposedly pro-American number,
Somewhere in the World (song) and Klaus Derendorf, who also produced the track. The four finalists of the second series of "The X Factor Australia", which included including Childs, Mahogany, Sally Chatfield and Andrew Lawson, recorded the song in preparation for a single release as soon as the winner was announced. After Childs was announced the winner of the series, "Somewhere in the World" was given to him as his debut single and released digitally on 22 November 2010. It impacted Australian mainstream radio stations the following day and became the third most added song to radio in its second week of release. "Somewhere in