Ventura Highway

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"Ventura Highway" is a popular 1972 song by the rock group America from their album, Homecoming.

Vocalist Dewey Bunnell has said that the "alligator lizards in the air" in the song are references to cloud shapes.^[1] 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 Gerry and Dan doing a harmony on two guitars on the intro. I remember us sitting in a hotel room, and I was playing the chords, and Gerry got that guitar line, and he and Dan worked out that harmony part. That's really the hook of the song."

"Ventura Highway" went on to become a #8 single for the group. The tune won many fans, including a certain wrestler-turned-politician: "We went and played at Governor Jesse Ventura's inaugural out in Minneapolis. He asked us to — his wife is a horse lady, and she'd always loved 'A Horse With No Name,' and he had adopted this name, Ventura. So when he put together his cast of characters for his big inaugural celebration, he wanted us to come and play two songs, which we did."

The song was notably sampled in 2001 by Janet Jackson for her hit single "Someone to Call My Lover".

Both this song and the album were recorded in the studio next to Stevie Wonder, who was then recording his classic album, Innervisions.