A Horse With No Name chords by America

Video blocked due to privacy settings

A Horse With No Name | Chords + Lyrics

Intro

||: Em | D6add9/F# :||

Verse 1

||: Em | D6add9/F# :||
On the first part of the journey.
I was looking at all the life.
There were plants and birds and rocks and things.
There was sand and hills and rings.

Verse 2

||: Em | D6add9/F# :||
The first thing I met was a fly with a buzz.
And the sky with no clouds.
The heat was hot and the ground was dry.
But the air was full of sound.

Chorus 1

||: Em | D69/F# :||
I’ve been through the desert on a horse with no name.
It felt good to be out of the rain.
In the desert, you can’t remember your name.
‘Cause there ain’t no one for to give you no pain.

Chorus tag 1

||: Em | D6add9/F# :|| x4
La la la la la la…

Verse 3

||: Em | D6add9/F# :||
After two days in the desert sun.
My skin began to turn red.
After three days in the desert fun.
I was looking at a riverbed.
And the story it told of a river that flowed,
made me sad to think it was dead.

Chorus 2

||: Em | D6add9/F# :||
You see, I’ve been through the desert on a horse with no name.
It felt good to be out of the rain.
In the desert, you can’t remember your name.
‘Cause there ain’t no one for to give you no pain.

Chorus tag 2

||: Em | D6add9/F# :|| x4
La la la la la la…

Solo

||: Em | D6add9/F# :|| x4

Verse 4

||: Em | D6add9/F# :||
After nine days I let the horse run free.
‘Cause the desert had turned to sea.
There were plants and birds and rocks and things.
There was sand and hills and rings.

Verse 5

||: Em | D6add9/F# :||
The ocean is a desert with its life underground.
And a perfect disguise above.
Under the cities, lies a heart made of ground.
But the humans will give no love.

Chorus 3

||: Em | D6add9/F# :||
You see I’ve been through the desert on a horse with no name.
It felt good to be out of the rain.
In the desert, you can’t remember your name.
‘Cause there ain’t no one for to give you no pain.

Outro (chorus tag 3)

||: Em | D6add9/F# :|| x16
||: La la la la la la… :|| to fade

A Horse With No Name chords and TAB

America‘s A Horse With No Name is often found in the beginner guitarist’s repertoire as “it only has two chords”.

What those two chords actually are is perhaps up for debate. The band consists of three acoustic guitar players, all playing slightly different parts that blend together into a dreamlike landscape.

This can’t be summed up in one guitar part so we have to play “in the spirit of”. The first chord is an Em, sometimes an Em7.

The second chord is (either) a D6, with an add9, using the 3rd in the bass, that’s an F#, so D6add9/F#.

Should we want to look at it from the F#, instead of a D, and also ignore that open D string, we could call it an F#m11.

Here’s TAB of two ideas of how you could play A Horse With No Name’s strumming pattern. Moving between these two ideas will get you somewhere in the ballpark of what America played on the original recording.

A Horse With No Name chords, strumming and TAB.

A Horse With No Name chords | Related pages

Five similar tunes

When you can play A Horse With No Name's chords, try these five tunes from the song book.

America

Named America so people wouldn’t think they put on a fake accent, the band formed in London during the late 60s.

Their best tunes include A Horse With No Name, Ventura Highway, and Sister Golden Hair.

America tunes.

America on the web