October 4, 2024      —–     Chart #266

Hey folks, welcome to another edition of Chart of the Week. I featured this band two weeks ago and they’re back again this week. “Never Been to Spain” is a song written by Hoyt Axton, originally released on his 1971 LP Joy to the World and later that year performed by Three Dog Night, with Cory Wells on lead vocal. It was featured on their 1971 album Harmony.

The lyrics consist of the narrator ruminating about overseas localations that he has never visited, but about which he feels he has some proxy experience, primarily via the music but also due to other presumed highlights found in those places. He loosely compares his own actual travels to these more worldly spots.

In the final verse, he observes that while he has “never been to heaven”, he has “been to Oklahoma”, where he was told he was born, thus implying a kinship between the two places. Hoyt Axton, who was born in Oklahoma, explained that he originally wrote, “…in Oklahoma, born in a coma….” However, it was considered inappropriate; thus, the lyrics were changed to “not Arizona“.

Hoyt Axton:

Another great song that brings me back to my earliest days. I hope you enjoy this one and have fun playing it.

Keep Rockin’,

Stan Bradshaw