I have enjoyed listening carefully to the lyrics of the Eagles and I can see why there is a hobby people have of determining the meaning. Hotel California is about the feeling California gives people and the way it pervades the memory even after you are “back home”. The Eagles were from the midwest and the lure of California to them, and to me, is the beauty and timelessness of the geography. It is truly a unique physical paradise but it is corrupted due to the culture it has attracted. The pioneers came for gold. The movie industry came for the climate and the empire building. The music industry thrives there with talent of the sometime self destructive artists and their various audiences. The Eagles were referring to the culture, not a physical Hotel California. On a dark desert highway, cool wind in my hair, warm smell of calitas (marijuana smoke) rising up through the air (mystically). Up ahead in the distance (towards the west) I saw a shimmering light. (The promise of the fun, scary, exciting things in the city) So as they contemplated this “ I had to stop for the night” They thought about the juxtaposition of good and bad “heaven and hell”. The imagery of the hotel, corridors, the creepy captain and the nightman “you can check out anytime you like..but you can never leave”. Welcome to this place, and then welcome to the culture of deception, manipulation, betrayal. ”Anytime of year you can find it here’.
The words they choose are so literate:
•Bring your alibis.
•You can see the stars and still not see the light.
•They will never forget you...till somebody new comes along.
•Every form of refuge has its price
•Did she get tired or did she just get lazy?
•You call someplace paradise, you can kiss it goodbye
•Looking for a place to run..or a place to hide
•Some dance to remember, some dance to forget
•So you live from day to day, and you dream about tomorrow,
•And the hours go by like minutes and the shadows come to stay
....So you take a little something to make them go away
•I don't know why fortune smiles on some and lets the rest go free
•We thought we could change this world
with words like "love" and “freedom“
•So often times it happens that we live our lives in chains
and we never even know we have the key
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