I want to hold you till the fear in me subsides

But the vague lyrics were often misconstrued as drug references Randy Newman dismissed ‘A Horse With No Name’ as sounding like it’s “about a kid who thinks he’s taken acid.” The line “there were plants and birds and rocks and things” is particularly egregious, and later provided an album title for Scott Miller’s The Loud Family.

The song was intended to literally depict the desert, inspired by artworks and by writer Dewey Bunnell’s travels through the desert as a child. ‘A Horse With No Name’ was the first single from folk-rock trio America. There were plants and birds and rocks and things He gave the green light to generations of pseuds.” Craig Finn of The Hold Steady later told The Guardian that “that’s surely the worst line in rock’n’roll history. ‘Riders On The Storm’ was the last Doors’ single to feature front-man Jim Morrison – it entered the US charts the same week that Morrison died.

But the opening couplet, rhyming “masses” with “masses”, could have used some more work. Unlike most of the tracks to come on this list, Black Sabbath’s ‘War Pigs’ is a great song.

Paranoia in b flat major lyrics