{"id":820222,"date":"2026-05-25T03:06:16","date_gmt":"2026-05-25T03:06:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/820222\/"},"modified":"2026-05-25T03:06:16","modified_gmt":"2026-05-25T03:06:16","slug":"the-1972-america-song-with-the-most-lasting-power","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/820222\/","title":{"rendered":"The 1972 America song with \u201cthe most lasting power\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"America<\/p>\n

Credit: Far Out \/ MUBI<\/p>\n

\u201cVentura Highway in the sunshine \/ Where the days are longer, the nights are stronger than moonshine\u201d, so goes \u2018Ventura Highway\u2019, a breakthrough single from the band America<\/a> in 1972, from their second album, Homecoming. <\/p>\n

With an apt, perfect name to introduce them, America became one of the leading groups within the California rock scene and beyond, honing their own voices within the Americana tradition, and not just in their name. From their beginnings, the band had something different. For one, they were from London (and lead singer\/guitarist Dewy Bunnell was born in Yorkshire<\/a>), but not British. Each member, Bunnell, Gerry Beckley and Dan Peek, was the son of US Air Force personnel who were eventually stationed in London, bringing their families along with them, in the mid-1960s. <\/p>\n

They attended London Central High School together and played with their own bands before coming together in 1970 to form America. Each sang lead and backing vocals while playing guitar, finding their place within the folk tradition\u2019s softer acoustic melodies. Their 1971 self-titled debut album made them household names with the hits \u2018A Horse With No Name\u2019<\/a> and \u2018I Need You\u2019, before they re-emerged the following year with a fantastical force in \u2018Ventura Highway\u2019.<\/p>\n

To be clear: there is no actual Ventura Highway. Rather, Ventura is a county in California, while Highway 101, a major highway which connects Los Angeles to Tumwater, Washington, runs through the county. \u201cThere is no such beast,\u201d Bunnell clarified of the fictitious highway, in the 2001 documentary Walk on By: The Story of Popular Song, and he noted that he was trying to invoke the image of the Pacific Coast Highway, Highway 1. <\/p>\n

When writing the song, living on a farm outside of London, Bunnell took the liberty of combining the two within his recollection of childhood fantasy, reconnecting with his American roots and tracing back to a day when he and his family were driving down the West Coast from Vandenberg Air Force Base. \u201cOne time, it was 1963 when I was in seventh grade, we got a flat tyre, and we\u2019re standing on the side of the road, and I was staring at this highway sign,\u201d Bunnell recalled to the Los Angeles Times<\/a> in 2006, \u201cIt said \u2018Ventura\u2019 on it, and it just stuck with me. It was a sunny day, and the ocean there, all of it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Amercia<\/a>Credit: Record Sleeve<\/p>\n

Stuck waiting for their father to fix their tyre, Bunnell and his brother stood aside and began staring at the sky. In the white clouds that overtook the blue horizon, they began to see shapes, and thus, America sings of \u201cSeasons crying no despair \/ Alligator lizards in the air\u201d, child-like visions of animals dancing in the sky coming to life in the song.<\/p>\n

Elsewhere in \u2018Ventura Highway,\u2019 the character of Joe comes into play, an old man inspired by someone that Bunnell met while his father was stationed in Biloxi, Mississippi. \u201cJoe\u201d represents a \u2018Go West, young man\u2019, mindset for the kid in Bunnell\u2019s story to embark on. Once again playing into the idea of Americana, the phrase suggests an encouragement to expand across the country, finding opportunity and ideas along the way. <\/p>\n

Ventura Highway, then, becomes a symbol of hope, a place for the kid to aspire towards on his travels. \u201c\u2018Cause the free wind is blowin\u2019 through your hair \/ And the days surround your daylight there,\u201d they sing, conjuring the sense of wild abandon granted by life on the road, travelling to parts unknown. <\/p>\n

Bunnell also once expanded on the opening vision of \u2018Ventura Highway\u2019: \u201cChewin\u2019 on a piece of grass \/ Walkin\u2019 down the road\u201d, noting that he revisited childhood memories, once again, this time thinking of when he and his family lived in Omaha, Nebraska<\/a>, and they would walk through the cornfields and, indeed, chew on pieces of grass. \u201cSo I think in the song, I\u2019m talking to myself, frankly, \u2018How long you gonna stay here, Joe?\u2019\u201d Bunnell explained in the booklet for America\u2019s Highway box set. <\/p>\n

\u201cI really believe that \u2018Ventura Highway\u2019 has the most lasting power of all my songs,\u201d he continued, \u201cIt\u2019s not just the words, the song and the track have a certain fresh, vibrant, optimistic quality that I can still respond to.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

ADD AS A PREFERRED SOURCE ON GOOGLE \"\"\/ <\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Credit: Far Out \/ MUBI \u201cVentura Highway in the sunshine \/ Where the days are longer, the nights…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":820223,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[29],"tags":[20829,337276,5229,171,975,67,132,68],"class_list":["post-820222","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-music","tag-1970s","tag-337276","tag-america","tag-entertainment","tag-music","tag-united-states","tag-unitedstates","tag-us"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116633009630266335","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/820222","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=820222"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/820222\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/820223"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=820222"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=820222"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=820222"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}