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Art Garfunkel is a “Bernie guy.”

One half of the duo whose famous song, “America,” is the soundtrack for the most recent ad for Senator Bernie Sanders’s campaign, pledged his allegiance to the candidate in an interview with CNN’s Michael Smerconish.

“I like Bernie,” Mr. Garfunkel said. “I like his fight. I like his dignity and his stance. I like this song.”

He added that while he and his former musical partner, Paul Simon, might not agree on everything, they are both “liberals in our inclination,” and agreed on letting the Sanders campaign use their song.

Mr. Garfunkel said the idea to use the song came from the campaign, but the duo “acquiesced” to the request.

The heart-tugging originality of the ad has generated a lot of news attention at a time when most in Iowa are being inundated with brash, negative advertising from the Republican presidential candidates.

When explaining why he prefers Mr. Sanders to Hillary Clinton, Mr. Garfunkel reiterated an attack the Sanders campaign has been repeating since the last debate.

“I like that Bernie is very upset by the gap between the rich and the poor,” Mr. Garfunkel said. “I think that’s central. The power of money to — when Bernie says, Hillary gave a speech, she got $275,000 for that speech. You got to give a very good speech to earn that money. He’s winking at we know the power of whoever backed her, and she’s beholden to them, and that’s how America works until somebody says, not with me.”

As for the meaning of the song, and whether it tracks with the message of the Sanders campaign ad, Mr. Garfunkel was less exacting and more philosophical.

“I don’t know if there’s a specific thing except we’ve come to look for the country and we don’t really know who we are,” Mr. Garfunkel said. “We never knew who we were. We’re still working out what Alexander Hamilton was working out. How do we fuse in becoming United States of America and not southern planters who want states’ rights? In the very Constitution, we’re working out the fusion of the nation. We’re still doing it.”