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Greetings 405 listener!
The 405 airs over KMMR Radio Station. At 5 Minutes past 4 PM each M-F week day of the year. Here on the website we strive to have it posted within a few hours afterwards.
Your neighbor and website maintainer,
D.J. Rasmussen
Thanks for stopping by and listening to the shows.
I want to again welcome you to The 405 Coffee Break, Guys getta you a cup of coffee, glass iced tea, bottled water. Let's see what's happening.
OK Solberg:Spring wheat $5.39 a bushel. 550lb steer calf $4.09, just like the household cleaner. A butcher hog in Iowa, 68ยข a pound, and a lamb that's fat in Billing weighing 100lb will fetch you $2.17 to $2.23 depending on their condition. But, guys, there's more, much more.
OK Solberg:Today, let's go to the desert and see what we can find. Oh, yeah. It reminds me of a great song titled Horse With No Name.
OK Solberg:Now, do you remember that one? Sung by America, and it came out in 1971. Oh, wow. Looky what we have here. I was going to do this episode, episode on oddities of the English language, and I can prove it because I was going to say, I can desert my post in the desert.
OK Solberg:Both desert and dessert are dessert are spelled the same way, but not that dessert, but the kind if I'm going to desert my post are, and I was going to pull up a bunch of those backwards misfits, but then I pulled up A Horse With No Name, bingo, I found another rabbit hole. Listen, this is from Mike Morrish. Mike Morrish. It reads, there's a sign that makes the rounds on Facebook that frequently gets posted to my timeline. It reads, all I'm saying is at any point during that ride through the desert, he could have given that horse a name.
OK Solberg:The reference is, of course, to the song, A Horse With No Name by the band America. My friends know I'm a longtime fan of the band, Mike writes, so that's why the sign is frequently posted on my Facebook page. The quote continues. It turns out though that I have a little insight on this, thanks to the guy who wrote it. The song was written by Dewey Bunnell, who along with Gary Beckley and Dan Pete founded the band America in 1970.
OK Solberg:Its self titled debut album released in 1971 didn't initially contain this song. But after A Horse With No Name, which featured Bunnell on lead vocals as well, became a hit after it became a hit and went all the way to number 1 on The US Billboard Hot 100 chart. The America album was re released in 1972 with that track. But the controversy surrounding the song wasn't that the horse didn't have a name, It was that some radio stations refused to play it because of its supposed reference to heroin. Horse is a slang term for heroin.
OK Solberg:And straight from the horse's mouth, you might say, Bunnell has told me that a horse with no name is not about drugs, not at all. The central theme of the song was solitary thinking in a peaceful place. Solitary thinking in a peaceful place. The horse was really just a vehicle to get out there. I always loved the desert as a kid.
OK Solberg:The heat was hot. It was an important feeling that I was trying to recreate here. No drugs, end of quote. Now you see why I enjoy doing these episodes. It's like a great big rabbit chase every day. So let's see what else we can find on this heroin banning idea. So here's what I found. Yes. Yes.
OK Solberg:Yes. Indeed, the song, A Horse With No Name was banned by some US radio station, such as WHB in Kansas City due to concerns about supposed drug references to heroin. Despite the ban on some stations, the song became a massive hit reaching number 1 on The US billboard hot 100, end of quote. I did not know that. I now do. It's so interesting to do this research, and because of you, I have a place to share it.
OK Solberg:But with the banning being done, it reminded me of the prohibition documentary done by Ken Burns. You gotta see it. It's a delightfully educational documentary. But in that documentary, one of the historians interviewed said this, hey, you wanna get your kids to brush their teeth?
OK Solberg:Ban toothbrushes. They'll be up on the roof in the middle of the night brushing like crazy. Now I say, if you want your song to go to number one, get some radio stations to ban it. Things that are banned, people gotta have. Human nature is a complex thing, isn't it? Do you think there is a bible passage relevant? Do you think there is on this subject? Listen.
OK Solberg:Genesis chapter 2, The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden Of Eden to work it and keep it. And the Lord commanded the man saying, you may surely eat of every tree of the garden, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, you shall not eat.
OK Solberg:For in that day that you eat of it, you will surely die. And you fast forward to chapter 3, it says, so when the woman saw that the tree was good for food and that it was a delight to the eyes and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate, and she also gave some to her husband who was with her and he ate.
OK Solberg:Tell us not to do it, and that's the first thing we'll do. Being good isn't always easy. Ban something, and that's what we have to have. It's in our genes.
OK Solberg:So until next time, as you go out there, remember now. Don't be bitter.