America – Lonely People

An answer to Eleanor Rigby, cut with George Martin

From 17 April to 7 May 1974, America were at AIR Studios in London with George Martin, recording the album that would be called Holiday. Dan Peek brought in a short song he had written with his wife, Catherine Peek, within about a month of their wedding in 1973.

Peek said the spark was a line from the Beatles’ Eleanor Rigby: “all the lonely people, where do they all come from.” It had stayed with him. He had thought of himself as that lonely person. After the marriage he wanted a song that did not leave those people where the Beatles line left them. Lonely People tells them not to give up. The chorus offers a “silver cup” and a highway, plain images, sung in the close harmony America had used since A Horse with No Name.

Before the dates at AIR, the three rehearsed at a house Beckley had outside London. Peek later said Beckley had pushed for Martin, a strong arranger who happened to be free, after Hat Trick (1973) had sold less than the first two albums. Martin produced Holiday, his first full studio record with the band, and Geoff Emerick engineered it. The trio was still Gerry Beckley, Dewey Bunnell and Peek. Willie Leacox played drums; this was his first album with them. Lonely People runs just over two and a half minutes. Acoustic guitars carry it, with piano and harmonica underneath and the three voices locked on the refrain. Martin, who had shaped Eleanor Rigby with a string octet in 1966, kept this answer spare. Holiday came out on Warner Bros. on 26 June 1974. The single followed on 1 December.