The song I chose to analyze is a classic from the Eagles. The song it titled, “Hotel California”. I heard the song when I was in middle school because the band happened to be my dad’s favorite band. When I was younger, I thought the song was about hell or about Satan. The song was written in the late 1970’s, more specifically in 1977 and the album it came from was title, “Hell Freezes Over”. The story initially seen in the song is that a man traveling to a resort called Hotel California is a place that is inviting and exciting but in the end, it turns out to be some sort of terrible dream. There are references to a dark place that “You can check out of, but you can never leave” or the lyrics that state, “We are all just prisoners here of our own device”. It wasn’t until I was older that I realized the metaphor within the song. There are orientations in the song that can lead someone to believe it to be about a cult or possibly a group of people but in reality, the metaphor is about always wanting more than one has or never being satisfied. The title of the song is actually referencing to the state of California but really it could be generalized to include everywhere that materialism takes place. The stanza of the song that really makes it apparent about wanting more than what we have is when the song references a woman with a Mercedes Benz and her being “Tiffany twisted”. There are also lyrics in the song that say, “this could be heaven or this could be hell”. I believe the band meant that they were stuck in between finding the place tempting but also seeing that there was an evil or underlying meaning behind it. I believe it was meant to reveal the emptiness the life of excess could bring about. It can buy a person all the things they desire in the world, but how truly happy can they be? Once someone desires a material item, who is to say that is stops there? The reality is that it doesn’t because there is always going to be something we don’t have out there. The band has come out and said the interpretations about hell and about satanic cults are false and that in reality, it was about America and consuming excess. He said they were interpreting the “high-life in Los Angeles”.
Link to the song:
Hotel California- Eagles
Lyrics to the song:
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
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
Such a lovely place
Such a lovely face
Plenty of room at the hotel california
Any time of year, you can find it here
Her mind is tiffany-twisted, she got the mercedes bends
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
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
Such a lovely place
Such a lovely face
They livin’ it up at the hotel california
What a nice surprise, bring your alibis
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
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!
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