“A Horse with No Name” by America
On the first part of the journey
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 the ground was dry
But the air was full of sound
I’ve been through the desert on a horse with no name
It felt good to be out of the rain
In the desert you can remember your name
‘Cause there ain’t no one for to give you no pain
La, la
After two days in the desert sun
My skin began to turn red
After three days in the desert fun
I was looking at a river bed
And the story it told of a river that flowed
Made me sad to think it was dead
You see I’ve been through the desert on a horse with no name
It felt good to be out of the rain
In the desert you can remember your name
‘Cause there ain’t no one for to give you no pain
La, la
After nine days I let the horse run free
‘Cause the desert had turned to sea
There were plants and birds and rocks and things
there was sand and hills and rings
The ocean is a desert with it’s life underground
And a perfect disguise above
Under the cities lies a heart made of ground
But the humans will give no love
You see I’ve been through the desert on a horse with no name
It felt good to be out of the rain
In the desert you can remember your name
‘Cause there ain’t no one for to give you no pain
La, la
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A Horse with No Name
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
“A Horse with No Name” is a song written by Dewey Bunnell, and originally recorded by the band America. It was the band’s first and most successful single, released in late 1971 in Europe and early 1972 in the US, and topping the charts in several countries. It was certified gold by the Recording Industry Association of America. Due to the song’s resemblance to the work of Neil Young from the same time period, it is occasionally mistaken for being written and sung by Young.
Development
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 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. “A Horse with No Name” was recorded at Trident Studios in Soho in London and released as the featured song on a three-track single in the UK, Ireland, France, Italy and the Netherlands in late 1971. On the release “A Horse with No Name” shared the A-side with “Everyone I Meet Is from California”; “Sandman” featured on the B-side. However, its early-1972 two-track US release did not include “Sandman”, with “Everyone I Meet Is from California” appearing on the B-side.
Reception
Despite the song being banned by some U.S. radio stations (including one in Kansas City, Missouri) because of supposed drug references to heroin use, the song ascended to number one on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100, and the album quickly reachedplatinum status. The song charted earlier in the Netherlands (reaching number 11) and the UK (reaching number 3) than it did in the United States. The interpretation of the song as a drug reference comes from the fact that the word “horse” is a common slang term for heroin.
The song’s resemblance to some of Neil Young‘s work aroused some controversy. “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.” By coincidence, it was “A Horse with No Name” that replaced Young’s “Heart of Gold” at the #1 spot on the U.S. pop chart.
The song has also been ridiculed for its banal, 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.” Penn Jillette asked the band about their lyric, “there were plants, and birds, and rocks, and things” after a show in Atlantic City, where America opened for Penn & Teller. According to Jillette, their explanation for the lyric was that they were intoxicated with cannabis while writing it. In a 2012 interview, Beckley disputed Jillette’s story, saying, “I don’t think Dew was stoned.”
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HORSE – InternetSlang.com
The slang word / acronym / abbreviation “HORSE”
What is HORSE? |
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| HORSE is “Heroin” | |
HORSE Definition / HORSE Means |
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| The definition of HORSE is “Heroin” | |
The Meaning of HORSE |
|
| HORSE means “Heroin” |
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DRUG FACTS
Revised October 2014
SOURCE: http://www.drugabuse.gov/publications/drugfacts/heroin
Heroin is an opioid drug that is synthesized from morphine, a naturally occurring substance extracted from the seed pod of the Asian opium poppy plant. Heroin usually appears as a white or brown powder or as a black sticky substance, known as “black tar heroin.”
In 2011, 4.2 million Americans aged 12 or older (or 1.6 percent) had used heroin at least once in their lives. It is estimated that about 23 percent of individuals who use heroin become dependent on it.
How Is Heroin Used?
Heroin can be injected, inhaled by snorting or sniffing, or smoked. All three routes of administration deliver the drug to the brain very rapidly, which contributes to its health risks and to its high risk for addiction, which is a chronic relapsing disease caused by changes in the brain and characterized by uncontrollable drug-seeking no matter the consequences.
How Does Heroin Affect the Brain?
When it enters the brain, heroin is converted back into morphine, which binds to molecules on cells known as opioid receptors. These receptors are located in many areas of the brain (and in the body), especially those involved in the perception of pain and in reward. Opioid receptors are also located in the brain stem, which controls automatic processes critical for life, such as blood pressure, arousal, and respiration.
Heroin overdoses frequently involve a suppression of breathing. This can affect the amount of oxygen that reaches the brain, a condition called hypoxia. Hypoxia can have short- and long-term psychological and neurological effects, including coma and permanent brain damage.
After an intravenous injection of heroin, users report feeling a surge of euphoria (“rush”) accompanied by dry mouth, a warm flushing of the skin, heaviness of the extremities, and clouded mental functioning. Following this initial euphoria, the user goes “on the nod,” an alternately wakeful and drowsy state. Users who do not inject the drug may not experience the initial rush, but other effects are the same.
Researchers are also investigating the long-term effects of opioid addiction on the brain. One result is tolerance, in which more of the drug is needed to achieve the same intensity of effect. Another result is dependence, characterized by the need to continue use of the drug to avoid withdrawal symptoms. Studies have shown some deterioration of the brain’s white matter due to heroin use, which may affect decision-making abilities, the ability to regulate behavior, and responses to stressful situations.
What Are the Other Health Effects of Heroin?
Heroin abuse is associated with a number of serious health conditions, including fatal overdose, spontaneous abortion, and infectious diseases like hepatitis and HIV (see box, “Injection Drug Use and HIV and HCV Infection”). Chronic users may develop collapsed veins, infection of the heart lining and valves, abscesses, constipation and gastrointestinal cramping, and liver or kidney disease. Pulmonary complications, including various types of pneumonia, may result from the poor health of the user as well as from heroin’s effects on breathing.
In addition to the effects of the drug itself, street heroin often contains toxic contaminants or additives that can clog blood vessels leading to the lungs, liver, kidneys, or brain, causing permanent damage to vital organs.
Chronic use of heroin leads to physical dependence, a state in which the body has adapted to the presence of the drug. If a dependent user reduces or stops use of the drug abruptly, he or she may experience severe symptoms of withdrawal. These symptoms—which can begin as early as a few hours after the last drug administration—can include restlessness, muscle and bone pain, insomnia, diarrhea and vomiting, cold flashes with goose bumps (“cold turkey”), and kicking movements (“kicking the habit”). Users also experience severe craving for the drug during withdrawal, which can precipitate continued abuse and/or relapse.
Besides the risk of spontaneous abortion, heroin abuse during pregnancy (together with related factors like poor nutrition and inadequate prenatal care) is also associated with low birth weight, an important risk factor for later delays in development. Additionally, if the mother is regularly abusing the drug, the infant may be born physically dependent on heroin and could suffer from neonatal abstinence syndrome (NAS), a drug withdrawal syndrome in infants that requires hospitalization. According to a recent study, treating opioid-addicted pregnant mothers with buprenorphine (a medication for opioid dependence) can reduce NAS symptoms in babies and shorten their hospital stays.
Prescription Opioid Abuse: A First Step to Heroin Use?
Prescription opioid pain medications such as Oxycontin and Vicodin can have effects similar to heroin when taken in doses or in ways other than prescribed, and they are currently among the most commonly abused drugs in the United States. Research now suggests that abuse of these drugs may open the door to heroin abuse.
Nearly half of young people who inject heroin surveyed in three recent studies reported abusing prescription opioids before starting to use heroin. Some individuals reported taking up heroin because it is cheaper and easier to obtain than prescription opioids.
Many of these young people also report that crushing prescription opioid pills to snort or inject the powder provided their initiation into these methods of drug administration.
Injection Drug Use and HIV and HCV Infection
People who inject drugs are at high risk of contracting HIV and hepatitis C (HCV). This is because these diseases are transmitted through contact with blood or other bodily fluids, which can occur when sharing needles or other injection drug use equipment. (HCV is the most common blood-borne infection in the Unites States.) HIV (and less often HCV) can also be contracted during unprotected sex, which drug use makes more likely.
Because of the strong link between drug abuse and the spread of infectious disease, drug abuse treatment can be an effective way to prevent the latter. People in drug abuse treatment, which often includes risk reduction counseling, stop or reduce their drug use and related risk behaviors, including risky injection practices and unsafe sex.
Treating Heroin Addiction
A range of treatments including behavioral therapies and medications are effective at helping patients stop using heroin and return to stable and productive lives.
Medications include buprenorphine and methadone, both of which work by binding to the same cell receptors as heroin but more weakly, helping a person wean off the drug and reduce craving; and naltrexone, which blocks opioid receptors and prevents the drug from having an effect (patients sometimes have trouble complying with naltrexone treatment, but a new long-acting version given by injection in a doctor’s office may increase this treatment’s efficacy). Another drug called naloxone is sometimes used as an emergency treatment to counteract the effects of heroin overdose.
For more information, see NIDA’s handbook, “Principles of Drug Addiction Treatment.”
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“A Horse With No Name” -What Does That Mean?
Miss Cellania • Thursday, October 3, 2013 at 5:00 AM
Source: http://www.neatorama.com/2013/10/03/A-Horse-With-No-Name-What-Does-That-Mean/
Neatorama presents a guest post from actor, comedian, and voiceover artist Eddie Deezen.
Rock music is one of the great art forms of the twentieth century. But a sideline for those of us who love rock music, like the many movie fans who try to figure out or “interpret’ what the filmmakers were trying to say in their movies, is trying to figure out what the songwriters were trying to say in their songs.
In this activity, no greater challenge comes than America’s classic tune “A Horse with No Name.” A pleasant, catchy, albeit haunting song, it was America’s very first single and was also to be America’s biggest hit. A number one chart topper in several countries, the song was certified gold in 1972. It remains America’s most identified song, almost the group’s “theme song.”
But what is “A Horse with No Name” about, exactly? What does it mean?
The folk/rock group America originally consisted of three members: Gerry Beckley, Dewey Bunnell, and Dan Peek. The band was formed in England and the members were sons of U.S. servicemen. The group found success early, when the members were barely out of their teens.
America’s first album, redundantly titled America, was released initially in Europe in 1971 with only moderate success. This album did not contain “A Horse With No Name.”
Trying to find a song that would be popular in both America and Europe, they came up with a song about the desert. “A Horse with No Name” was originally titled just that: “Desert Song.” The song was written while the band was staying at the home studio of Arthur Brown in Puddletown, Dorset. The first two demos of the song were recorded there, by Jeff Dexter and Denis Elliot.
According to the song’s writer, Dewey Bunnell, the song was composed to capture the hot, dry feeling of the desert (he was just 19 when he wrote it). Bunnell said he remembered his childhood travels through the Arizona and New Mexico desert when his family lived at Vandenburg Air Force base.
He said he was trying to capture the dry feeling of the desert that had been pictured in a Salvador Dali painting in Arthur Brown’s studio/home. Bunnell said he was also writing about “the strange horse” that was ridden in an M.C. Escher picture.
Bunnell added to the story of the song’s genesis as recently as 2008, saying, “It was a travelogue in my mind, an environmental song to some degree. We were part of the hippie era to save the earth, and I’ve always been attracted to nature and the outdoors.”
Originally, the band thought “A Horse with No Name” was too corny and it actually took some convincing to get them to play it. The song had its public debut at the Harrogate Music Festival to a great audience response. After several performances and a TV show, “Desert Song” was officially retitled “A Horse With No Name.” It was released in March of 1972, became a #1 hit, and stayed at the top of the charts for three weeks. The debut album America was re-released to include the song and quickly went platinum.
The song was actually banned on some U.S. radio stations because of its title and lyrics. “Horse” is a common street term for heroin. Dewey Bunnell and the other members of America completely denied any drug reference connected with the lyrics.
The popular song was also ridiculed by several critics for its banal, oddly-phrased lyrics, i.e. “The heat was hot,” “There were plants and birds and rocks and things,” “‘Cause there ain’t no one for to give you no pain,” etc.
The song was also knocked for being a Neil Young ripoff. Many actually thought it was a Neil Young song. Bunnell understood this criticism and never tried to hide the fact that he greatly admired Neil Young. “I never shied away from the fact that it was inspired by him,” said Bunnell. Ironically, “A Horse With No Name” replaced Neil Young’s “Heart of Gold” at #1 on the charts.
Randy Newman once said the song was “about a kid who thinks he’s taken acid.”
Comedian Richard Jeni joked, “You’re in the desert, you got nothing else to do. Name the freakin’ horse!”
Like it or not, “A Horse with No Name” remains a rock classic around the world. Tune in to any “’70s weekend” on an oldies radio station and you will most certainly hear its strange, haunting lyrics.
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Interpretation of “A Horse with No Name” – as understood by this author
The way I see it, the lyrics of this song have little or nothing to do with heroin addiction.
It seems to be a very apt description of life, in contemporary times, in any thriving metropolis of the world, be it New York, Tokyo, Rio, Paris or Mumbai. Life in any metropolis of the world is suitably described by the pop music group, ‘America’ as being akin to life in the “desert.” The scenario in any big city of our times is one of bleakness, starkness and impersonality. A city has a lot of attractions such as luxury hotels, malls, fancy supermarkets, multiplexes, etc. A “horse” is a common farm animal that is seen quite often in cities too – it is a mundane and ordinary sight to see a horse at the head of a cart or a carriage, or to see people (mostly children) queued up and waiting for their turn to take a horse-ride in the vicinity of a park or of amusement-grounds, such as a ‘band-stand.’ There are so many millions of people in big cities that they have undoubtedly become as common and ordinary a sight as that of a horse or even a dog – these people tend to be so engrossed in their own lives and problems; they are so overcome by daily stresses that they have no time – nor are they bothered – to find out even who their immediate neighbours are. For them, these neighbours have no name or a unique identity. People who lead their lives within any megalopolis have, a long time ago, lost all traces of their own unique personalities in the larger picture of life in a big city – in that sense, a person has become as banal and common-place as a “horse with no name.”
In another context, an implied meaning of the song likely lies in the narration of a story of a man who finds himself lost in the desert. After as short a period as 9 days, the man is in a daze of dehydration from the scorching, punishing heat of the desert. The desert, being such a stark and unforgiving landscape, made this man lose all sense of an identity. Within 9 days, it seems highly likely that he died – all alone and forgotten – just like a horse who has lost its way in the merciless clutches of the impersonal desert. It still refers to the larger picture of people who lose their way in the labyrinth of life in a big city where loneliness, callousness, indifference and impersonality are the order of the day. Rather than try to survive the fall into an abyss (life in a megalopolis), or rather than trying to look for a way out of a complicated maze (a complicated situation or problem), many a youth, in today’s world, have turned to drug addiction – as a way of seeking a modicum of peace, comfort and solace in a world that no longer cares.
“Hooked on Inspiration’s Blog” by Sherna Bhumgara 