The Song Becomes The Drug…
America was popular back when I was. This clip from 1973, is of the lads, Dewey, Dan, and Gerry, early in their career, performing their chart-busting Horse With No Name. Putting together this post, I found myself doing what I did when this cut came out on LP — listening to it over and over, trying to decipher the mesmerizing words and sounds. It is at once intriguing, depressing, uplifting, confusing, non-sensical, and contains the answers to the mysteries of life. Even if the writing and performing of the song were not chemically assisted, listening to it you begin to realize the song becomes the drug…
9 Comments so far
You know, musical tastes vary so widely. This song was always a “change the station” number for me. Can’t say why, I guess I just found it gratingly vapid.
I truly don’t mean this as an insult or put-down. I know some of the songs which have grabbed me were real clunkers.
I liked that song also and been a lot of years since I heard it. I thought it was about nature and the desert when I first heard it so many years back but then heard it’s about doing drugs and in particular heroin. I guess you can take it where you are. It fits with some others that have lyrics, like poems, that can be fitted to what you want to see in them and each time you listen, you think hmmmm now what did that mean.
i listen to my oldies but goodies station all the time..and that is one of my favorite songs..but when they have call in requests i always ask them to play midnight at the oasis..makes me feel good and love to sing along with it
It’s hard to beat “Midnight Choir” by Larry Gatlin
… I’ve always loved that song simply because it was a riddle…. funny, really…. I woke up this morning and was thinking of Tom Waits’ song “Big Black Mariah” while I made the coffee…. another indecipherable song that is a riddle….
You have good taste in music.
I have to agree with gerry. The minute this song came on the radio, I’d switch to another station. This, plus “Dust in the Wind.” Please. Horse with no name. Dust in the Wind. Get over your bad psycho/drug-meaning selves.
But I totally support your right to love Horse, Winston.
I kind of have to get on the ‘Gerry and Mary’ bandwagon. Not my song of choice at a time when music was as much a part of my life as food…..still is, I think.
[...] preparation for the previous post featuring America’s Horse With No Name, I listened to many renditions and covers, as well as several different versions of some other [...]