A newly resurfaced anecdote reveals that the iconic guitar lick opening America's 1972 hit "Ventura Highway" was almost scrapped after a friend criticised it, with the band member telling him he had "ruined" the song. Songwriter Gerry Beckley recalled that he and bandmate Dan Peek devised the lick together as an addition to the track, which had already stood strong on its own before the guitar part was added, only for an English friend to dismiss the change upon first hearing it.

The song, primarily written by Dewey Bunnell, drew on a childhood memory from 1963, when the Bunnell family's car had a flat tyre near a road sign for Ventura during a journey down the California coast. Despite the early doubts about the guitar lick, it went on to become a defining feature of the song, reinforcing its optimistic, free-spirited tone, and the track remains one of America's best-known hits from their self-produced 1972 album Homecoming.