Hotel California (song)

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"Hotel California"
Image:SteelyKnifes.jpg
Single by Eagles
from the album Hotel California
Released	December 8, 1976
Format	vinyl record
Genre	Rock
Length	6:30
Label	Asylum
Writer(s)	Don Felder/Glenn Frey/Don Henley
Producer(s)	Bill Szymczyk
Chart positions
#1 (USA) #8 (UK)
Eagles singles chronology
"New Kid In Town" (1976)	"Hotel California" (1976)	Life in the Fast Lane (1977)

"Hotel California" was the title song from Eagles' album of the same name, and was released as a single at the end of 1976. It is one of the best-known songs of the Album Oriented Rock era.

The lyrics of the song describe the title establishment, a hotel where "you can check out anytime you like, but you can never leave". On the surface, the song is a tale of a weary traveler who becomes trapped in a nightmarish hotel that at first appeared tempting; as a metaphor the song may be commenting on drug addiction or simply the decadent lifestyle the hugely successful band had been caught up in.

The original version of the song is performed in slow rock style, opening with a long, repeated electric guitar motif. During the verses, guitar and bass provide melodic counterpoint to the vocal. The end section of the song consists of a series of guitar solos building to a multi-layered variation on the opening theme with multiple guitars in chorus. The song is also well known for its guitar solos, which are performed by both Joe Walsh and Don Felder.

Writing credits for the song are shared by the group's three main songwriters: Don Henley, Glenn Frey and Don Felder.

"Hotel California" won the Grammy Award for Record of the Year in 1978.

It is rated by many polls to be one of the greatest songs of all time: Rolling Stone magazine, for example, states it is the forty-ninth greatest song of all time.

As one of the group's most popular and well-known songs, "Hotel California" has been a concert staple for the band since its release; performances of the song appear on the Eagles' 1980 live album and, in an acoustic version, on the 1994 Hell Freezes Over reunion concert CD and video release.

A few cover versions of "Hotel California" have been released, notably by flamenco band the Gipsy Kings. In 2004, it was recorded by American Idol reject William Hung. Australian band The Cat Empire recorded a version of the song in French (L'Hotel Californie), for Triple J's Like A Version segment and subsequent CD compilation. Marc Anthony has often sung the song live.

A Reggae Version from Moonraisers has been downloaded on mp3.com more than a half a million times.

The song may have been influenced by the 1969 Jethro Tull song "We Used to Know", from the album Stand Up. The chord progressions are nearly identical, and the bands toured together prior to the release of the song.While recording in Miami, Don Felder had to phone home to California to have his maid send him a copy of the demo in order to reproduce the introduction and end solos, which may have acounted for the words "copyright in dispute" in the liner notes and the use of compulsury license, as noted by the EU copyright designation. Additionally, fans have noticed thematic similarities with Don Henley's solo single "Sunset Grill".

Over the years the song has been associated with rumours of Satanic elements and claims that the band members themselves were responsible for it; adherents point lyrics referring to stabbing "The Beast". The band has denied any connection to Satanism or the Occult.

1 Alternative Interpretations
2 Cultural References
3 Trivia
4 External Links

[edit] Alternative Interpretations

Though generally viewed as an allegory for drug addiction and destructive decadence [1], another theory points to the song being a literal descript of an alien abduction. Analysis of the lyrics follows:

On a dark desert highway, cool wind in my hair
Warm smell of colitas, rising up through the air
Up ahead in the distance, I saw a shimmering light
My head grew heavy and my sight grew dim
I had to stop for the night

A man driving alone in the middle of nowhere sees a "shimmering light" ahead of him and feels drowsy. He pulls over and drifts to sleep.

There she stood in the doorway;
I heard the mission bell
And I was thinking to myself,
'This could be Heaven or this could be Hell'
Then she lit up a candle and she showed me the way
There were voices down the corridor,
I thought I heard them say...
Welcome to the Hotel California...

When the man awakens, he finds himself in a strange place that "could be Heaven or...could be Hell". As she leads him down a corridor, he hears voices and in trying to understand them, he thinks he hears them say "Welcome to the Hotel California"

Her mind is Tiffany-twisted, she got the Mercedes Benz
She got a lot of pretty, pretty boys, that she calls friends
How they dance in the courtyard, sweet summer sweat.
Some dance to remember, some dance to forget

The woman, whose sanity he questions, shows the man the various artifacts brought onboard with the other abductees, how live in a daze unable to remember much of their lives before the abduction and unable to forget that they are abductee. The woman in the song represents the lull of drugs and prostitution to the men, who were captured in the hotel and cannot leave.

So I called up the Captain,
'Please bring me my wine'
He said,'We haven't had that spirit here since nineteen sixty nine'
And still those voices are calling from far away,
Wake you up in the middle of the night
Just to hear them say...
Welcome to the Hotel California

The man, falling into the lull effecting the other abductees, addresses the Captain of the ship. His experiences last so long onboard that he sees the pattern emerge of the strange sounds emminating from the ship at the same intervals each night, and each time he thinks the voices are saying "Welcome to the Hotel California".

Mirrors on the ceiling,
The pink champagne on ice
And she said 'We are all just prisoners here, of our own device'
And in the master's chambers,
They gathered for the feast
The stab it with their steely knives,
But they just can't kill the beast

The quarters each abductee is given has metallic mirrored walls and ceiling, with luxuries available to placate the prisoners and to entice them to stay. The abductees, in either an experiment or a meal, are presented with a living creature which they have to kill in order and consume. Try as they might, they just can't kill the beast.

Last thing I remember, I was
Running for the door
I had to find the passage back
To the place I was before
'Relax,'said the night man,
We are programmed to receive.
You can checkout any time you like,
but you can never leave

The narrator, seeing the failed experiment for what it is makes good on his escape attempt, fleeing down passageways on the ship to escape and get back to the desert and his car. He struggles with a guard who tries to subdue the narrator but fails. As the man gets out of the ship, he knows knows he'll be traumatized by the experience and never really forget the horror he experienced.

[edit] Cultural References

At Camp Nama, a secret detention and interrogation facility outside of Baghdad International Airport operated between mid-2003 and mid-2004 by U.S. Army unit known (then) as Task Force 6-26, high-value detainees were housed in a separate area of 6-by-8-foot cubicles known as Hotel California, suggesting a new sense of poignancy to the some of the song's darker lyrics. [2]

In popular television show, CSI:Crime Scene Investigation episode Pirates Of The Third Reich, the song is referred to in a comparison to a clinic. Greg Sanders says "This clinic is like the Hotel California. You can check in anytime you like but you might never leave." [3]

In an episode of Family Guy, Peter and Lois separate to date other people. Peter moves in with Mort Goldman and when asked what they do for fun he replies that they watch old films and listen to Hotel California to see if it links up in a significant way. He then procedes to claim that it hasn't yet.

[edit] Trivia

The lyric "They stab it with their steely knives/But they just can't kill the beast" is widely believed to be a nod to Steely Dan's lyric "Turn up the Eagles, the neighbours are listening" in their song "Everything You Did". Indeed, Glenn Frey confirmed this in a 2003 interview. [4]