A Horse With No Name by America

Horse With No Name

1971

America

If you were in Jr. high, high school, or college during the early Seventies and claim that you never head bopped to that classic guitar intro, then lip-synced  'On the first part of the journey...' right along with Dewey Bunnell, you just might hail from some strange, culturally deprived world located in a galaxy too distant to pick up Top 40 Radio.

Neither this four and a quarter minutes worth of legendary cultural icon nor the band that made it a classic would have come to be because if, back in 1970, a trio of teenage Air Force brats who were living on base with their parents in England hadn't decided that they were bored out of their skulls.The three guys were Gerry Beckley, Dewey Bunnell and Dan Peek, and all three of them attended London Central High School, which served the USAF side of RAF Base Raslip near London where their dads were stationed. Better yet, all three were musically inclined and crazy-talented and somewhere along the way the three of them met up and decided to do something about the aforementioned boredom. 

The 'Something They Did About It' was to organize a little Rock Band. Just to have something to occupy their time, of course, and maybe make a little pocket change if they managed to snag a gig or two. The whole 'Becoming One Of The Most Iconic Rock Bands In History' thing was just a nice little bonus.

The very first thing they picked was the group's name, and as the story's told, they decided on 'America' because they really didn't want anyone thinking they were actually British musicians who were trying to sound American. After picking that soon-to-be iconic moniker, the group adopted the same style of three part harmony that Crosby Stills, Nash and Young had pretty much made into an art-form, then grabbed some local gigs around London and environs there-of.  As a preview of things to come, the kids of the Greater London Metro Area loved 'em.... (One of the venues they played, BTW, was a former railroad locomotive maintenance shed turned entertainment venue named Roundhouse Chalkfarm, where another little group known as Pink Floyd got their start).

America's local success ended up getting them noticed by and signed to The UK division of Warner Brothers through Kinney Records. They wrote some songs, and spent hours and days and weeks in the studio recording their first self-titled album, polished it, tweaked it, finally released it...and met with only moderate success. The album didn't flop, exactly, but it wasn't a runaway hit either. More importantly in the hearts, minds, and wallets of the label, none of the songs on the album grabbed anyone and yelled 'Buy Me!!'

 No singles were released from this first effort, so WB-UK pulled them back into the studio (London's Morgan Sound Studios, to be precise) and asked them to knock out some more songs that might be more radio-friendly and more importantly, might sell big in the U.S,  Basically the label wanted America to pull a break-out hit out of thin air...so they preceded to do just that.

They demoed a quartet of songs that hadn't been included on that initial album and let the relevant label-suits mull over them. One of these songs was a Dewey Bunnell penned tune featuring a catchy, addictive beat, haunting melody and cryptic lyrics they had christened 'Desert Song'. They had knocked the song out during one of those dreary, chilly, rainy weeks or so that the British Isles tend to have in bunches while crashing at Arthur Brown's home studio in Puddletown, Dorset, England a couple of months earlier. All three of them were just about done with watching rain bounce off of the street and Dewey Bunnell, who really hated these ever-lasting bouts of weather-funk, was mentally defiling all things 'rain'. . 

His dad had been stationed at Vandenberg Air Force Base, near Lompoc, California, before getting transferred across 'The Pond' and Dewey and his brother had spent uncounted hours exploring the desert surrounding the base. As he listened to rain spatter off the windows and stared at an abstract Salvidor Dali desert painting hanging next to strange horse depicted in a woodcut by M.C. Escher on the studio wall, he suddenly started doodling with chords and jotting down lyrics. 

Dan and Gerry probably listened and watched for a minute or so and asked him what he was up to. Dewey maybe smiled, said something about 'heat;, and gave them the general outline of what he was trying to do...create a desert. Right there in the studio. So Gerry and Dan dived right in and helped him build a classic. Though they had no idea that's what they were doing...they just wanted to get their mind off of rain for a while.

So, yep, the iconic tune that would become their signature song was written as a musical distraction to get their minds off of England's dreary weather and when they demoed it along with three other unreleased tunes, they had absolutely no inkling that WB-UK would pick it as their first single. Everyone was actually expecting 'I Need You' to be the album's first single, but their producer Ian Samwell along with other WB-UK powers that be really really liked 'Desert Song. A quick meeting of the minds later, 'Desert Song' had been chosen as the band's first released single...and it'd also be the last time it would be called by that name. The phrase 'A Horse With No Name' had really clicked with Samwell, and that's what he decided he wanted them to call the song.

That change was made, they tweaked the song a bit, and sent it out into the world in December of  '71. It was released in The U.K. first and climbed to # 3 on the British Pop Charts within under a month. They didn't release it as a single in the U.S until a little over a month later, though it still got a bit of airplay here and there in major markets, probably due to 'intentionally unintentional' leaks to hype up us music-buyin' teens. When the single finally did hit the record stores in the US on January 31^st 1972. we 70's Kids snapped 'em up like funnel cakes at a County Fair. It debuted on the Billboard Hot 100 twenty days after it's release, on Feb 19^th , broke into the Top Ten at #7 on March 11, then snagged the the top spot two weeks later on March 25. It would hang on to #1 for three straight weeks and spend a total 14 weeks on the charts, ten of 'em in the Top Ten.

We loved the song...but not everyone did. A lot of adults who were also parents took one listen to Dewey Bunnell's lyrics, gasped in shock and horror, and exclaimed 'Listen to that!!!! (Gasp) It;'s about...(GasP!!) drugs!!!! Several radio stations actually banned it, citing the fact that 'Horse' was street slang for Heroin (And ignoring the fact that 'Horse' was the word used to identify, well, a horse). This indignant reaction to the song may have slowed it's rise to #1 by, ohhhh, twenty seconds or so.

The phrasing and grammar used in the lyrics also helped fuel the 'It's About Drugs I Tell Ya!!!!' cry of our protective parents (“I mean, listen to it...it just had had to have been written by someone who was high!!! (GasP!!!)”..and that, my friends, is a direct quote from my own Mom. Thankfully, and likely with the urging of my dad, she still let me buy both the single and the album).

The fact was, Dewey Bunnell took lots of liberties with grammar for the sake of the flow of lyrics and rhythm during the writing of not only Horse With No Name, but all of his songs. He admitted as much, and if he hadn't, done so 'A Horse With No Name' would have lost that distinctive sound and beat. Just try subbing correct grammar for the actual lyrics in, say, the last two lines of that iconic chorus (In the desert you can remember your name 'Cause there ain't no one for to give you no pain ). It would not have sounded Right. At. All.

Then Neil Young got into the act due to the song's resemblance to his own work (The fact that it knocked his own tune, 'Heart of Gold', out of the number one spot on The Billboard Hot 100 probably helped fuel that fire a bit). Some people actually thought it was a new Neil Young song the first time they heard it and Dewey Bunnell readily admitted that he had long and deeply admired, and was greatly inspired by, Neil Young's work. There was some controversy as well as some pretty painful backlash, but no one took any legal action, very few people outside of the Music Industry even noticed, and the singles kept flying off of record store shelves.

The label, of course, gleefully took note of the single's run-away sales and re-released the album with 'A Horse With No Name' added to the track-list, The re-released album also went to #1, giving America a pretty sweet double-play of statistical and sales awesomeness when both their first single and first album topped the charts. While it was at it, 'A Horse With No Name' also played point-man for a trio of back-to-back top ten hits...not at all bad for a band that was just starting out!

I well remember it being all over the radio during the late winter and spring of '72 (And when it hit the airwaves in Richmond and Hampton Roads, it did so on WLEE and WGH respectively...those markets' AM Top 40 powerhouses,. Those classic AM stations were still going strong then, not yet pushed aside by the FM Top 40 stations that would take over in a few years).

The song went beyond becoming a classic to become a cultural icon and one of the symbols of an entire generation. We loved it then, and it's still a favorite among us 'Seventies Kids' today. Happily, it's still all over the radio, on the Oldies and Classic Rock stations now, and I can just about bet you'll hear it at least once in any 24 hour period on any of 'em. (That'd be 107.3 and 96.5 in Richmond, and 106.9 in Hampton Roads.)

This one's gonna be around forever...no, really, literally forever. A century or so down the road, someone'll be listening to a classic music station on whatever technology replaced the technology that replaced XM Radio, and that catchy guitar intro 'll start up, leading in to America's signature song, and someone else will be envious of those Seventies Kids who grew up with the best music ever written and performed. They can just envy it...we lived it!

So enjoy! 'A Horse With No Name' by America.

First bonus. Another montage of desert scenes set to America's signature song..I really like the graphics in this one, and I'd have used this one for the main video had it not cut off just a second or so too early.



The second bonus Is.A. True. Jem!!! While researching videos for America's songs, I ran up on several vids of an informal live performance...possibly a recording session...and the clips of them performing Horse With No Name are intercut with an early music video for the tune. Take a look!



And for Bonus Numero Quatro...Dewey Bunnell and Gerry Beckley performing A Horse With No Name while on tour, back in 2007...still sounding good then (And now!)





A few interesting li'l facts before I end this one...

'A Horse With No Name is one of the most analyzed songs that has ever been written. Take a look at it's Songfacts page . While the 'Facts' section of the page is surprisingly basic, the comments are an interesting read, because pretty much everyone has their own opinion about the deep, hidden meaning behind those iconic lyrics. There are 140 comments at last count, with several long, detailed interpretations of the lyrics, discussions on whether or not the song was ether about drugs or written while on drugs, a few more detailed comments about the facts I covered in this very post, and a couple of comments that are hilarious for their ignorance. (One notes that the song was inspired by a book that wasn't written and published until almost a decade after 'A Horse With No Name' was released). SO if you love music and have a spare few minutes, grab some munchies and the beverage of your choice, and have a read!.

'A Horse With No Name' actually has one of the simplest guitar chords ever composed...so simple, in fact, that it's often used in basic guitar lessons >>>REALLY...CLICK!<<<. As Dewey Bunnell noted (Thanks to accessbackstage.com for the quote!) “I tuned the A string way down to an E, and I found this little chord, and I just moved my two fingers back and forth, and the entire song came from basically three chords.” So simple that I could probably play it...Ok, maybe that's pushin' it!

Back in February 2012...on the 40^th anniversary of the release of 'A Horse With No Name'...America was awarded with a star on the Hollywood Walk Of Fame.

America has never ever broken up...they became a duo after Dan Peek left the group back in 1977, but Dewey Bunnell and Gerry Beckley have stayed together, played together, performed, and yes toured together for for 42 years. Not only that, but a couple of their back-up musicians have also been with them for most of that ride. And, just to prove that they're still relevant, and that they still freakin' rule'...they played L.A.'s modern live music icon , Coachella, back in 2012. And, as one of the perks for those living in Southern Cali, they played the San Diego County Fair on July 4th, 2014...the day before I typed this. Lucky San Diagoians!

Both this fact and the one above, BTW, are covered in some more detail, along with several others in the Vulture.com article I linked below.

Any song as iconic as 'A Horse With No Name' grabs a huge web-presence. Along with the sites I've already linked:

http://www.venturahighway.com/index.php America's official site. Includes trivia, tour schedules, pretty much anything you ever wanted to know about the group.

http://www.accessbackstage.com/america/song/song005.htm Accessbackstage, a truly awesome site for music buffs, with loads of trivia about classic songs and artists

http://www.neatorama.com/2013/10/03/A-Horse-With-No-Name-What-Does-That-Mean/#!3Mgug Neatorama's page on 'Horse With No Name. Neatorama's on of those sites with trivia and factoids about pretty much anything you can imagine.

http://www.vulture.com/2012/02/america-horse-with-no-name-influential.html Interesting discussion on why America was so influential and and why their genre of music became known as 'Frisbee Rock'