Newsbiscuit reports that the horse with no name was actually called Derek:

In a confession that looks set to rock the US singer-songwriter fraternity to the core, the author of America’s transatlantic top 5 hit A Horse With No Name has admitted that the horse in question was actually named by the writer ‘on the second part of the journey’. Nearly four decades after its release Dewey Bunnell broke the news whilst promoting his new autobiography ‘Na Na Naa Na-na-na-na-naaah’ on LA’s KWHY Radio.

‘Face it, the desert is a pretty boring place,’ he said. ‘There really wasn’t much else for me to do, so I ended up considering all sorts of names. ‘I tried singing, ‘I’ve been through the desert on a horse called Keith’ but I ran out of rhymes. For a while the horse was called ‘Ray’, then ‘Alan’ and following a particularly severe case of sunstroke he was a horse called ‘Mighty Zoltan the Destroyer.’

Bunnell also admitted to severe embarrassment when he listens back to the song’s lyrics; ‘I was in a juice bar only yesterday, getting myself a wheatgrass smoothie, and it came on the radio. All that stuff about there being ‘plants and birds and rocks and things’ – sheesh! I really wish I’d packed a decent botanical encyclopaedia now, instead of all that weed.’ The response to the revelation from California’s ageing singer-songwriter community has been swift. Speaking from her mansion in Laurel Canyon, Carly Simon branded Bunnell a ‘fraud’ and a ‘sell-out’: ‘The art of the singer-songwriter is to tell it like it is, with embarrassingly intimate revelations about their personal lives. Mr Bunnell has made a mockery of this with his wanton equine-fabrication. He should consider his invitation to Friday night’s ‘hot tub and bbq party’ withdrawn forthwith’

But Dewey’s confession has given others the confidence to speak out. Eric Burdon of The Animals confessed ‘there really is a house in New Orleans.’ But it’s actually called ‘No 3, The Mews’ while Paul Weller recently performed a re-worded version of that old Jam favourite ‘A Town Called Woking.’