A Horse with No Name

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“A Horse with No Name”
Single by America from the album America
B-side	"Sandman" (Bunnell)
Released	1972
Format	vinyl record
Recorded	1971
Genre	Folk rock
Length	4:08
Label	Warner Brothers
Writer(s)	Dewey Bunnell
Producer	Ian Samwell
America singles chronology
— "A Horse with No Name" (1972) "I Need You" (1972)

"A Horse with No Name" is a song by the band America and their first single.

Contents 1 Development 2 Composition 3 Reception 4 References

[edit] Development

America's self-titled debut album was initially released in Europe with only moderate success and without the song "A Horse with No Name." Looking for a song that would be popular in both the United States and Europe, producer Ian Samwell helped the group to record the song and persuaded the Warner Brothers label to re-release the album with "Horse ..." included.

Originally entitled "Desert Song," the song was renamed at Samwell's suggestion. It was written on a rainy day in England, in 1971, and was intended to capture the feel of the hot, dry desert Bunnell remembered from his childhood travels through the Arizona and New Mexico desert when his family lived at Vandenberg Air Force Base. ^[1]

[edit] Composition

"A Horse with No Name" was recorded in the key of E minor with acoustic guitars, bass guitar, and bongo drums. The only other chord is a variation of the Em, fretted on the low E and G strings, second fret.^[2] A 12 string plays an added F# (second fret, high E string) on the back beat of the Em. A noted feature of the song is the driving bass line with a hammer-hook in each chorus. A "waterfall" type solo completes the arrangement and may have been borrowed from the Dan Peek song "Rainy Day", also on the album. {Peek, Dan: An American Band; Xulon Press; 2004}

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[edit] Reception

Despite — or perhaps because of — its being banned by some U.S. radio stations (including one in Kansas City) because of supposed drug references^[3] the song rose to number one on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 and the album quickly went platinum. The interpretation of the song as a drug reference comes from the fact that "horse" is a common slang term for heroin.

The song's resemblance to Neil Young's work stirred some grumbling as well. Incidentally, it was "A Horse With No Name" that bumped Young's "Heart Of Gold" out of the #1 slot on the U.S. Pop chart. "I know that virtually everyone, on first hearing, assumed it was Neil," Bunnell says. "I never fully shied away from the fact that I was inspired by him. I think it's in the structure of the song as much as in the tone of his voice. It did hurt a little, because we got some pretty bad backlash. I've always attributed it more to people protecting their own heroes more than attacking me."

This song has also been ridiculed for its banal and/or oddly phrased lyrics, including "The heat was hot"; "There were plants, and birds, and rocks, and things"; and "'Cause there ain't no-one for to give you no pain."^[4] Randy Newman once described it as a song "about a kid who thinks he's taken acid". The late comedian Richard Jeni mocked the song's title. "You're in the desert," he said. "You got nothing else to do. Name the freakin' horse!"

In 1987 the Danish rock band D-A-D made a cover version released on the album D.A.D. Draws a Circle. Furthermore, the song has been covered by Larrikin Love with somewhat Celtic-sounding instrumentation and style for Q Magazine in 2006.

The song is featured in the game Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, playing on K-DST radio. The song is also featured in the movie The Trip. In 2008, it was used in a Kohls^[5] TV commercial for Vera Wang.

Preceded by "Heart of Gold" by Neil Young

Billboard Hot 100 number-one single March 25, 1972 (three weeks)

Succeeded by "The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face" by Roberta Flack

[edit] References

1. ^ Anonymous. "Highway Highlight (from the box set booklet)". Retrieved on June 20, 2008.
2. ^ David Hodge (2000). "Horse With No Name - Easy Songs for Beginners # 1 - (The Simplest Song)". Retrieved on July 9, 2008.
3. ^ "Liner notes, Highway Highlight". Retrieved on June 11, 2006.
4. ^ John Mendelsohn (1972). "Rolling Stone Review". Retrieved on March 12, 2006.
5. ^ splendAd - Kohl's - Simply Vera Spring 2008 commercial