Billy Don't Be a Hero Billy Don't Be a Hero "Billy Don't Be a Hero" is a 1974 pop song that was first a UK hit for Paper Lace and then, some months later, a US hit for Bo Donaldson and The Heywoods. The song was written and composed by two British songwriters, Mitch Murray and Peter Callander. Because the song was released in 1974, it was associated by some listeners with the Vietnam War, though the war to which it actually refers is never identified in the lyrics. It has been suggested that the drum pattern, references to a marching band leading soldiers in
A Place with No Name reported that Jackson and America shared a manager—believed to be Jim Morey—in the late 1980s and late 1990s. Jackson's version of "A Place with No Name" is not the first song by a member of the musical Jackson family to sample the work of America. Janet Jackson's hit "Someone to Call My Lover" — from the 2001 album "All for You" — samples "Ventura Highway", a song from America's 1972 "Homecoming" album. According to Dr. Freeze, the version of "A Place with No Name" that leaked is the final version Michael heard and approved in 2008, which is credited as