Credit: Far Out / MUBI
“Ventura Highway in the sunshine / Where the day is long, the night is stronger than the moonlight” is “Ventura Highway,” a breakthrough single from the band America’s 1972 second album. Homecoming.
With an apt and perfect name to introduce them, America honed not only their name but their voice within the Americana tradition, becoming one of the leading groups within and beyond the California rock scene. From the beginning, this band had something different. First, although they are from London (lead singer and guitarist Dewey Bunnell was born in Yorkshire), they are not British. Bunnell, Jerry Beckley and Dan Peek were the sons of U.S. Air Force men who eventually took their families to London in the mid-1960s.
They attended London Central High School together and played in their own band until 1970, when they united to form America. Each sang lead and backing vocals while playing guitar, finding their place among the soft acoustic melodies of the folk tradition. Their 1971 self-titled debut album shot them to fame with the hits “A Horse With No Name” and “I Need You,” and they re-emerged with great power the following year with “Ventura Highway.”
To be clear, there is no actual Ventura Highway. Rather, Ventura is a county in California, and Highway 101, the main highway connecting Los Angeles to Tumwater, Washington, runs through the county. “That beast doesn’t exist,” Bunnell declared about the fictional highway in a 2001 documentary. Walk on By: The Story of a Popular SongHe said he was trying to evoke images of the Pacific Coast Highway, Highway 1.
Bunnell, who lived on a farm outside of London, freely combined the two in reminiscences of his childhood fantasies when he wrote this song, rediscovering his American roots and going back to the days when he and his family would drive up the West Coast from Vandenberg Air Force Base. “One time, in 1963, when I was in seventh grade, I had a flat tire and I was standing on the side of the road staring at this highway sign,” Bunnell recalled. Los Angeles Times In 2006, he said, “It said ‘Ventura’ on it, and that really stuck out to me. It was a sunny day, the ocean was there, everything was there.”
As they waited for their father to fix the tire, Bunnell and his brother stood to the side and began staring at the sky. As its shape begins to appear in the white clouds beyond the blue horizon, America sings, “The seasons don’t cry out for despair / Alligator lizards in the sky,” and childlike visions of animals dancing in the sky come alive in the song.
Elsewhere in “Ventura Highway,” Bunnell introduces the character of Joe, an old man who was inspired by someone Bunnell met when his father was stationed in Biloxi, Mississippi. “Joe” represents the “go west, young man” mentality that the boy in Bunnell’s story embarks on. Once again tapping into the idea of Americana, the phrase suggests encouragement to expand across the country, finding opportunities and ideas along the way.
The Ventura Highway therefore becomes a symbol of hope and a destination for children on their journey. “Because the free wind is blowing through your hair/And there are days surrounding your sunlight,” they sing, evoking the sense of wild abandon afforded by a life of travel, traveling to unknown places.
Bunnell also once expanded on the opening vision of “Ventura Highway”, “chewing the grass/walking down the road,” once again recalling a childhood memory, this time while living with his family in Omaha, Nebraska, noting that he would walk through cornfields and actually chew on some of the grass. “So I think in this song, frankly, I’m saying to myself, ‘Joe, how long are you going to be here?'” Bunnell explained in the America’s booklet. highway box set.
“I truly believe that ‘Ventura Highway’ has the most staying power of all my songs,” he continued, “and it’s not just the words, there’s a certain fresh, vibrant, optimistic quality to the songs and tracks that I still respond to.”
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