America (band)
America is a pop/rock band based out of California who had its greatest success in the 1970s. They have never been critical favorites, but they had a handful of hits which are fondly remembered by fans.
Songs recorded by America include "Ventura Highway," "A Horse with No Name," "Sister Golden Hair," and "Muskrat Love." That last song makes them worth remembering; after all, that song kills killer tomatoes. "A Horse with No Name" and "Sister Golden Hair" are more pleasant to humans.
George Martin produced three of this band's albums.
America provides examples of the following tropes:
- Artistic Stimulation
- Covered Up: "Muskrat Love" was originally by Willis Alan Ramsey. America's version of the song was in turn Covered Up by Captain and Tennille.
- Ear Worm
- Greatest Hits Album: Which featured cover art by Phil Hartman, of all people.
- Ice Cream Koan: "A Horse with No Name"
- Idiosyncratic Album Theming: They once gave seven consecutive albums titles beginning with the letter H. Later in their careers, they did four more in a row like that.
- Intercourse with You
- Lyrical Shoehorn: "A Horse with No Name" contains lines like "there were plants and birds and rocks and things" and "cause there ain't no one for to give you no pain".
- Misattributed Song: "A Horse with No Name" is commonly mistaken for a Neil Young tune. Understandable, since the tune was directly influenced by Young's work.
- Word Salad Lyrics: "Ventura Highway" contains a couple of lines which writer Dewey Bunnell claims contain meaning but which listeners would be hard pressed to decipher, chiefly the line about "alligator lizards in the air".
