A Scott-Heron, Brian Jackson composition, �Winter in America� was first released on the 1975 studio album �The First Minute of a New Day.� The song�s tone is cynical about the state of democracy in the United States, where it is �rag-time on the corner.� It laments the effects of industrialization and pollution with images of a �forest buried beneath [a] highway� and �barren treetops.�