America's 'A Horse With No Name' Hits 1 Billion Spotify Streams, Dewey Bunnell Reacts

Jacqueline Burt CoteFri, April 10, 2026 at 2:56 AM UTC

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As rock history has proven over and over again, oftentimes a band's biggest hit is a song they didn't expect to do particularly well.

A perfect example? America's classic 1972 #1 hit, "A Horse With No Name."

As guitarist/singer Dewey Bunnell told Classic Rock in 2007, "everybody had a song called 'I Need You' in mind as the single."

"It was initially felt that 'A Horse With No Name' was good but perhaps a little too quirky," he continued. "At first it felt like a bit of a novelty song. It was a shock that it became so popular.”

Now, over 50 years after "A Horse With No Name" was released, Bunnell continues to be shocked by the song's success. In a new video posted to America's official TikTok, Bunnell took the time to thank fans for the track's most recent milestone: Passing the billion-streams mark on Spotify.

"Hi, this is Dewey Bunnell of the band America," the musician said in the clip.

"I'm amazed and surprised that I've just been informed that the song 'Horse With No Name,' which I wrote and America recorded, of course, 50-plus years ago, has surpassed the 1 billion mark on Spotify," he continued. "Thank you to all you listeners, thank you Spotify, and thank you to that old horse with no name."

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Fans in the comments were thrilled to hear the news, with one calling the accomplishment "pure gold."

"Proves that music is timeless!" added a second person.

"One of the greatest songs ever written," declared someone else, with another commenter calling it the "best song ever."

Not only did Bunnell come around to the fact that "A Horse With No Name" was destined to be a hit, he's also made peace with the fact that America is associated with the soft rock genre, as he told Classic Rock.

“Being called ‘middle of the road’ used to make me flinch,” he said, “but I’d like to think that we’ve carved out our own place in music history.”

It seems Spotify users would say that's exactly what America has done.

Related: 1985 No. 1 Soft Rock Power Ballad Became a Timeless Classic

This story was originally published by Parade on Apr 10, 2026, where it first appeared in the News section. Add Parade as a Preferred Source by clicking here.

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Source: “AOL Entertainment”