A Horse with No Name
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| "A Horse with No Name" | ||
|---|---|---|
 |
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| Single by America | ||
| from the album America | ||
| Released | 1972 | |
| Format | vinyl record | |
| Recorded | 1971 | |
| Genre | soft rock | |
| Length | 4:08 | |
| Label | Warner Brothers | |
| Writer(s) | Dewey Bunnell | |
| Producer(s) | Ian Samwell | |
| Chart positions | ||
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| 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 |
[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 and was intended to capture the feel of the hot, dry desert Bunnell remembered from his childhood at Vandenberg Air Force Base.[1]
[edit] Reception
Despite - or perhaps because of - its being banned in some locales, (Kansas City, among others) supposedly because of drug references[2] ("horse" is a common slang term for heroin), the song rose to number one on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 and the album quickly went Platinum.
The most common criticism of the song, even addressed in the liner notes of America's box set, was its similarity to Neil Young in sound and style.[3] In fact, "Horse" unseated Young's "Heart of Gold" from the number one spot. In the liner notes, Bunnell says, "I know that virtually everyone, on first hearing, assumed it was Neil. 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 my voice. It did hurt a little, because we got some pretty bad backlash." To this day it remains a common misconception that "Horse" is a Neil Young song, but its success opened the door for other hits from the album, including "I Need You," "Sandman," and "Riverside".
This song has also been ridiculed for the banal lyric, "The heat was hot". Randy Newman once described it as a song "about a kid who thinks he's taken acid". 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!"
The song has been covered by Larrikin Love with somewhat Celtic-sounding instrumentation and style for Q Magazine in 2006.
| Preceded by "Heart of Gold" by Neil Young |
Billboard Hot 100 number-one single March 25, 1972 |
Succeeded by "The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face" by Roberta Flack |
[edit] Trivia
- Is featured in an episode of Friends, The One with Joey's Big Break
- Is featured on the fictional Classic Rock radio station K-DST in the videogame Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas.
- Is one of the favorite songs of the character Black Mage from 8-Bit Theatre, as noted in "Episode 648: Task Mastery".
- Is featured on an episode of The Simpsons where Marge and Homer are getting it on in bed and it comes on the cassette player. Lisa refers to it as county fair music.
- Is featured in Key English 8- english book in Finland. There is unit about hot states of USA and the song is on CD before the unit.
- Is referenced in the Yo La Tengo song "Lewis" they say "I've been through the desert on a horse without a name"
[edit] References
- ^ John Mendelsohn (1972). Rolling Stone Review. Retrieved on March 12, 2006.
- ^ Liner notes, "Highway Highlight". Retrieved on June 11, 2006.
- ^ Rich Campbell (2002). America lyrics: A Horse With No Name. Retrieved on March 12, 2006.
