America: A Horse With No Name Meaning
Song Released: 1972
A Horse With No Name Lyrics
I was looking at all the life
There were plants and birds and rocks and things
There was sand and hills and rings
The first thing I met was a fly with a buzz
And the sky with no clouds
The heat was hot and...
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Straight from Dewey Bunell....
"America's self-titled debut album was released initially in Europe with only moderate success and without the song "A Horse with No Name." Trying to find a song that would be popular in both the United States and Europe, "A Horse with No Name" was originally called "Desert Song" and was written while the band was staying at the home studio of Arthur Brown, in Puddletown, Dorset. The first two demos were recorded there, by Jeff Dexter and Dennis Elliott, and was intended to capture the feel of the hot, dry desert that had been depicted at the studio from a Salvador Dalí painting, and the strange horse that had ridden out of an M.C. Escher picture. Writer Dewey Bunnell also says he remembered his childhood travels through the Arizona and New Mexico desert when his family lived at Vandenberg Air Force Base."
So, how could the song have been written in LA when it was written and two demos recorded in the UK?
How could it be about drugs when Bunell himself recalls "his childhood travels through the Arizona and New Mexico desert when his family lived at Vandenberg Air Force Base."?
You're all wrong. -
i dont care,drugs or no drugs its a cool song!
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From wikipedia.com
It was intended to capture the feel of the hot, dry desert that had been depicted at the studio from a Salvador Dalí painting, and the strange horse had ridden out of an M.C. Escher picture. Writer Dewey Bunnell also says he remembered his childhood travels through the Arizona and New Mexico desert when his family lived at Vandenberg Air Force Base.[3] -
It is actually about withdrawal from heroin(Horse). He succeeds in the end.
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I think its about heroine cause they say a horse is slang for heroine .
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Clearly, the "narrator" is stoned out of his mind. So much for meaning.
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From the earliest days, everyone said that it had to do with drugs, most likely heroin. I don't know, it's much like a lot of America's other lyrics. I have a feeling that especially in those days, many writers would get a good melody going and then write words that just sounded good with the melody.
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The desert is a drug clinic, a horse with no name is methadone. Think about it. That self discovery hogwash is funny, but wrong. Heard it in an interview with Gerry Beckley.
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I think that most likely, this song played backwards is probably about satan doing heroin in the middle of the desert.
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No 14 to give you no pain.. no masonic junk
can remember your name = agent junk
really... who would believe that there isn't something cool in every song by 'America'? -
Vocalist Dewey Bunnell has said that the "alligator lizards in the air" in the song are references to cloud shapes. He also explained in their box set booklet Highway Highlight that the song is "about leaving," Dewey adds. "It reminds me of the time I lived in Omaha as a kid and how we'd walk through cornfields and chew on pieces of grass. There were cold winters, and I had images of going to California. So I think in the song I'm talking to myself, frankly: 'How long you gonna stay here, Joe?' I really believe that 'Ventura Highway' has the most lasting power of all my songs. It's not just the words — the song and the track have a certain fresh, vibrant, optimistic quality that I can still respond to.
That's about Ventura Highway, showing it did have some meaning to it. -
One of the band members admitted - many years ago - that their songs had no deep meanings.
The question came up with their song, Ventura Highway. There were all kinds of interpretations flying around those lyrics.
The band member - I don't recall which one it was - admitted they pieced together music and lyrics to sound good, without any real thought to meaning. -
This song was originally just called, "The Desert Song". the Horse wasn't supposed to be a big part of it when they wrote it. You can interpret this song as an allegory if you want, but I'm not sure it's what America had in mind when they wrote it.
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It's a song about being a desert.
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This song has to do with heroin; the horse symbolizing heroin. First you're doing heroin (riding the horse) then moving away from it back to reality. America describes what the drugs can do to you, "In the desert you can't remember your name".
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